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AN ADDRESS 



UPON 



The Life and Services of 

Samuel Whitaker 

Pennypacker 



Governor of Pennsylvania 

President of the Historical Society 

of Pennsylvania 



By HAMPTON L. CARSON 



Delivered in the Hall of the Historical Society 
January 8th, 1917 



I 






AN ADDRESS 



UPON 



The Life and Services of 

Samuel Whitaker 

Pennypacker 



Governor of Pennsylvania 

President of the Historical Society 

of Pennsylvania 



^ 

V 



By HAMPTON L. CARSON 



Delivered in the Hall of the Historical Society 
January 8th, 1917 






>v. 



ORDER OF TREATMENT 

PAGE 

Ancestry 2 

Personal Characteristics 4 

Parentage 5 

Schooling 6 

Military Service 8 

Law Studies 9 

Historical Studies 10 

In Politics 12 

Law Practice 14 

Law Eeporter 15 

Judicial Career 16 

Nomination as Governor 24 

As Governor 26 

His Programme 28 

Legislative Vices 30 

Vetoes 31 

Eeapportionment 33 

Ballot Reform 34 

Eminent Domain 36 

State Constabulary 39 

Conservation 40 

Historic Shrines 41 

University of Pennsylvania 42 

State Enterprise 43 

Summary of Results 44 

Administrative Work 46 

Humor 47 

Charters 40 

Pardons 51 

Judges 51 

In Camp 53 

Governor's Duties 54 

Simplicity of Life 55 

Avoidance of Strike by Proclamation 56 

Quayism 58 

Refusal of Supreme Court Justiceship 62 

The Press Libel Law 65 

The Ripper Bills "9 

The Capitol Case 85 

Public Service Commission 90 

As a Collector 91 

Services to the Historical Society 91 

As a Pennsylvanian 94 

iii 



The Life and Services 



OF 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker 



Fellow Members of The Historical Society of Penn- 
sylvania; Ladies and Gentlemen: 

This meeting is held to commemorate the life and 
services of one who loved to enter these halls, and who 
will enter them no more. His active membership began 
in March, 1872. In 1876 he became a Comicillor, in 1885 
a Vice President, and in 1900 he became President, and 
was re-elected for sixteen successive years, holding the 
office at the time of his death — September 2nd, 1916. 
He was also one of the Trustees of the Gilpin Library, 
the Dreer Manuscripts Trust, the Publication Fund and 
the Building Fund. In all these positions he served us 
without stint of strength or lapse of interest. The im- 
portance, the variety and laboriousness of the duties 
circumscribed by this circle of offices can be best appre- 
ciated hj his colleagues, who bear cheerful testimony to 
his fidelity, his zeal and his effectiveness. It is no exag- 
geration to say that the promotion of the purposes of 
this great Institution formed a serious part of his labors 
in life, nor is it too much to say that during his admin- 

1 



2 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 

istration his spirit controlled and animated our delib- 
erations. A meeting from which he was absent was 
like an engine under half steam ; a meeting at which he 
was present moved under full pressure. The bow of 
Ulysses now stands against the wall unstrung, and 
none there be in all Ithaca who can bend it. 
Ancestry. jjjg character, while in the main simple in its out- 

lines, was in many respects complex and difficult of 
analysis, but the key to it lies in a careful study of his 
ancestry. James Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam 
hammer, in his Autobiography, wrote these words : 
''Our history begins long before we are born. We 
represent the hereditary influences of our race, and our 
ancestors virtually live in us. The sentiment of an- 
cestry seems to be inherent in human nature, especially 
in the more civilized races. At all events we cannot 
help having a due regard for our forefathers. Our 
curiosity is stimulated by their immediate or indirect 
influence upon ourselves. It may be a generous enthu- 
siasm, or as some might say, a harmless vanity to take 
pride in the honor of their name. The gifts of nature, 
however, are more valuable than those of fortune, and 
no line of ancestry, however honorable, can absolve us 
from the duty of diligent application and perseverance, 
and from the practice of the virtues of self control and 
self help." These striking and helpful words are ap- 
plicable to Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. Those who 
have been baffled in their efforts to understand him. 
those who were puzzled by seemingly contradictory 
traits, those who regarded his public career as a par- 
adox, must seek an explanation in the diverse elements 
of his descent, which like streams of distant origin took 
tinctures and tastes from the soils through which they 
flowed. Dutch, Norman-French, Anglo-Saxon and 
Welsh blood commingled in his veins. Dierck, the first 
Count of Holland in the ninth century, whose son mar- 
ried Hildegarde, the daughter of Louis of France, and 



Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 3 

Philippa, the granddaughter of Charles of Valois, who 
married Edward III of England in the fourteenth cen- 
tury, are to be found in the first line of descent. There 
also were Joan of Beaufort, Elizabeth Stradling, Bar- 
bara Aubrey and Elizabeth Bevan, all of Welsh descent. 
In the second line, which sprang from John of Gaunt 
— ''time honored Lancaster" — were Eleanor Somerset 
and Watkin Vaughan of England and of Wales. Some 
of these men had built churches, founded colleges or 
been pilgrims to the Holy Land ; some had been sailors 
and been rescued from pirates ; some had been men of 
restless ambition, or jolly dogs rejoicing in good liv- 
ing; some of these women had languished in lonely 
towers, ransomed prisoners, or stitched upon tapes- 
tries. As this blood filtered through dukes and earls 
to counts and knights and esquires, it finally became 
blended with that of the common people. The earliest 
of the Pannebakers, or, in Dutch, Pannebakkers, 
were tile makers in Holland, and disciples of Menno 
Simon, the founder of the sect now known as Men- 
nonites. Children of persecution and often burned as 
heretics at the stake, their descendants welcomed the 
approaches of the early Quaker preachers offering 
them inducements to seek refuge in the land of Penn. 
Hendrick Pannebaker, a member of the Dutch Re- 
formed Church, the founder of the American family, 
left his home in Crefelt, a city on the Rhine, near the 
borders of Holland, and became one of the earliest set- 
tlers in Germantown, and a friend of Francis Daniel 
Pastorius. His grandson, Matthias, the great-grand- 
father of the subject of this address, became a Bishop 
in the Mennonite Church. Since then the family has 
become widely scattered, extending from Canada to 
Mexico and California, and all through the eastern and 
middle counties of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Vir- 
ginia. The men have been lawyers, judges, physicians, 
farmers, soldiers, authors, publishers and preachers. 



4 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

and the women members of Quaker meeting, or the 
Church, and gentle mothers of modest citizens. 

At the Pennypacker Reunion, held October 4th, 1877, 
our late President in describing a member of the family 
who had become a Senator of the United States, said : 
''Reverdy Johnson wrote to me of Isaac S., of Virginia, 
that possessing 'sterling integrity he had the confi- 
dence of every man in the Senate.' Thaddeus Stevens 
complained of Elijah F. that he was 'too damned 
honest, ' and this trait, which seems to crop out even in 
our politicians, I think we may claim as a family char- 
acteristic." He also said: ''Physically we are gener- 
ally large, with dark hair and eyes, and if we could get 
our neighbors to repeat to us the comments they some- 
times make in our absence, we would probably learn 
that we wear full sized stockings and are not handsome. ' ' 
' ' This pedigree, ' ' as Governor Pennypacker once wrote, 
"is not without a certain philosophical value," and he 
tersely declared: "Man is a result as well as a cause." 
Personal Here thcu you have the key to his character. He had 

tics. unusual pride of ancestry combined with extreme dem- 

ocratic simplicity; he had an imposing carriage of the 
head and a rustic slouch of the body ; he had a peculiar 
twang of utterance, but his speech was accurate and 
polished. While he never forgot his patrician blood he 
never consciously reminded one of it. On State occa- 
sions he bore himself with lofty dignity; on informal 
occasions with unconventional affability. I have seen 
him receive the President of the United States and 
Governors of other States, surrounded by glittering 
staffs, with exact but not overstrained formality, and I 
have seen him, even while standing in front of the Gov- 
ernor 's chair, which was to him an emblem of authority 
and influence, talk easily with faiTuers, mine laborers 
and timid school teachers, in a way which disarmed 
embarrassment without inviting familiarity. He com- 
bined breadth of view and liberality of sentiment with 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 5 

marked racial bias, his Dutch strain predominating and 
inspiring some of his most eloquent utterances ; while 
singularly tolerant of other men's views he was ag- 
gressively insistent upon his own; kindly and even 
gentle at heart he was inflexible in the performance of 
duty however distasteful ; a man of definite egotism, he 
displayed the most unselfish modesty; with an entire 
absence of guile and the ingenuousness of a child, he 
knew mankind's badness and hated evil: loyal to his 
friends, he refused to listen to the tale-bearer; it was 
not that he closed his eyes to their imperfections, but 
that he was sympathetically astigmatic ; hospitable by 
nature he preferred men of Pennsylvania birth or an- 
cestry to those coming from other States however re- 
nowned they became: he placed Rittenhouse above 
Franklin, and Matthew Stanley Quay above Thaddeus 
Stevens and Stephen Gallatin; endowed with the fac- 
ulty of clearly expressing his thoughts he delighted in 
mystery of suggestion; serious and at times grave to 
sadness he rioted in humor and sparkled with wit; of 
the most recondite learning, he could talk with detailed 
knowledge of the most ordinary affairs; reluctant to 
provoke encounters he could and did bear himself with 
the most heroic and splendid courage. ''He was a 
man; take him for all in all, I ne'er shall look upon his 
like again." 

He was born in Phcenixville, Pa., on the 9th of April, Parentage. 
1843. His father, Isaac Anderson Pennypacker, was a 
graduate in medicine of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania in 1835, and Professor of Theory and Practice in 
the Philadelphia College of Medicine, which was later 
merged in Jefferson Medical College. His mother was 
Anna M. Whitaker, a daughter of Joseph Whitaker, a 
wealthy ironmaster. His grandfather was Matthias 
Pennypacker of Pickering, Chester County, Pa., who 
was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 
1837 ; a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and a 



6 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

corporator of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad 
Company. His grandmother was Sarah Anderson, 
daughter of Isaac Anderson, who had been a lieutenant 
in the Revolution, and a member of Congress from 1803 
to 1807, in the days of Jefferson, and later a Presi- 
dential Elector. 
Schooling. His carlicst teachers were his parents. His mother 

taught him to read before he was four years old, and 
his father, who was skilled in observing a child's pro- 
cesses of thought, was his daily instructor in conduct. 
While still very young he attended a school in the 
neighborhood, kept by a Mrs. Heilig, and he well re- 
membered the stool and the paper cap intended for 
'Hhe fool." Before he was eight years old he had de- 
voured Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress for the story, and 
knew ^sop's fables by heart. Later he delighted in 
tales of adventure, particularly those concerning Her- 
nando Cortez, Henry Hudson, Captain John Smith, and 
the American patriots, Putnam, Marion and Sergeant 
Champ. Then he read "Nick of the Woods," and to 
the end of his life he thought it the best tale of Indian 
warfare. At eleven he became interested in natural 
history, elementary astronomy and even dipped into 
Whitaker on Arianism. Guizot's Washington gave 
him an early bent toward American history, which 
became a passion. As a lad, he attended a public 
school on "Tunnel Hill," now a part of Phoenixville, 
and had as schoolfellows the children of the Irish 
workers in the iron mills and several Indian boys and 
girls of a Canadian tribe encamped on the Pickering 
creek. He was an apt pupil, and led in grammar, geog- 
raphy and arithmetic. He also used his fists upon one 
John Bradley, to whom j^ears later, when a judge, he 
granted a license to sell liquor in Philadelphia. At his 
father's house he frequently saw the famous traveler, 
Bayard Taj^lor, and listened with boyish rapture to 
tales of adventure in foreign lands. He also saw 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 7 

Daniel Webster, William H. Seward, Neal Dow of 
Maine, and younger men who in time became distin- 
guished, among them Wayne MacVeagh. In the fall 
of 1854, Dr. Pennypacker removed from Phoenixville 
to Philadelphia, living on Chestnut Street west of 18th 
Street, becoming one of the founders of The Philadel- 
phia City Institute, and of the Howard Hospital. The 
boy was then sent to the Northeast Grammar School 
under the presidency of Aaron B. Ivins, a noted 
teacher with a genius for mathematics. His progress 
was rapid, for in nine months he had passed from the 
Fifth form to the First. He then entered the West 
Philadelphia Institute, established by Professor Eph- 
raim D. Saunders, who insisted, with the aid of a 
native of France, upon the exclusive use of the French 
language in all of the school exercises and even upon 
the playground. In this way the future Governor ac- 
quired a ready use of French which he never lost. His 
schoolmate Gregory B. Keen writes of these days : "He 
had come fresh from the N. E. Grammar School full 
of notions as to the importance of English grammar, 
which he ventilated freely to us youngsters who knew 
nothing about it, in competition with our equally strong 
opinions as to the value of Latin grammar, which we 
were all studying, and which he knew nothing about. 
.... His favorite game at school was 'shinny.' " In 
1856 he had the misfortune to lose his father, who died 
at the early age of 44, and the family returned to 
Phoenixville. Already it had been planned that the 
boy should go to college and study law, and his prepar- 
atory studies were superintended at the Grovemont 
Seminary by the Rev. Joel E. Bradley, who had trans- 
lated the Bible from tJie Hebrew and Greek. He be- 
came proficient in French, Latin and Greek, reading 
four books of the ^neid, the Georgics, Sallust, Horace 
and Livy; and the Anabasis, the New Testament, Her- 
odotus and four books of Homer. The Latin he never 



8 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

forgot, and preferred Virgil to Homer. In mathemat- 
ics he mastered algebra and geometry and studied 
the elements of philosophy, chemistry and history. 
His school days ended in 1859. In preparing for the 
Sophomore class in Yale, he read far beyond the col- 
lege requirements, but owing partly to lack of means 
and partly to the outbreak of the Civil War he had to 
abandon all thought of a college education. Various 
efforts were made to secure clerical positions, all of 
which happily failed. While acting as President of the 
Young Men's Literary Union, he took part in debates 
and public entertainments, followed by a pedestrian 
trip across Eastern Pennsylvania and into Maryland. 
He also spent a summer in the drug store of a cousin 
in Kensington, and in a short time sold drugs and put 
up prescriptions. In the winter of 1861-62 he helped 
to keep the books of the firm of Whitaker & Condon 
which sold in Philadelphia the product of his grand- 
father's iron furnaces. The following winter he taught 
a public school, consisting of about sixty pupils, on a 
hill near his birthplace, and it is said that never was 
there in that locality a better teacher, and never were 
pupils better prepared. 
Military In his twentieth year he enlisted as a private in the 

26th Emergency Regiment of Pennsylvania Volun- 
teers. This was not militia service as the hasty might 
infer. I have been informed by the best authority that 
it was a service which tested patriotism, because the 
enlistment being for an emergency, its possible duration 
was indefinite, and in this respect the volunteer yielded 
more to the Government than the nine or twelve months 
men. The regiment saw service in the Gettysburg 
campaign, under the command of Colonel Jennings, 
and was in contact with White's Confederate Cavalry 
of Early's command at such a time and at such a place 
as to determine in part the scene of the great battle. 
It lost about 170 men who were captured by the enemy, 



Service. 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 9 

and, although consisting of raw recruits, acted with 
such firmness as to be mentioned in the dispatches of 
General Early. Private Pennyi^acker shortly after- 
ward wrote a sprightly and interesting account of his 
experiences under the title of ' ' Six Weeks in Uniform. ' ' 

After he was mustered out of service he entered as ^^^ studies. 
a student the law offices of the accomplished Peter 
McCall, Esq., then occupying the chair of Pleading and 
Practice in the Law Department of the University of 
Pennsylvania. A gentleman, who entered the same 
office shortly after Pennypacker had left it, writes me : 
"There was a sort of tradition among the students 
that he had been recognized as one of the ablest, if not 
the ablest of his period, and also (I think) that he had 
held on to his rather rugged manner and strong Re- 
publican views, untempered by the influence of 
Mr. McCall himself, who, as you know, was intensely 
Anti-Republican and whose personality did impress all 
of us to an extraordinary degree. Nobody could be in 
daily contact with him without wanting to be like him, 
and I rather think that Pennypacker had to make an 
effort not to yield a little in regard to views which I 
suppose I ought to label as 'reactionary' in the par- 
lance of the present day." 

After a novitiate of three years, during which he at- 
tended the lectures at the Law School delivered by 
George Sharswood, Peter McCall and the late P. Pem- 
berton Morris, he was admitted to the Philadelphia 
Bar May 19th, 1866, and graduated from the Law De- 
partment in July of the same year. Among his fellow 
classmates were Chief Justice Fell, the late Judge Wilt- 
bank, the late Judge McCarthy, and Samuel S. Hol- 
lingsworth, Silas W. Pettit, Rufus E. Shapley, George 
W. Biddle, Jr., B. Franklin Fisher, J. Granville Leach 
and the singular but picturesque Damon Y. Kilgore. 
His early practice was slender, and he amused himself 
by writing a Charade on the word Dramatic, and by 



10 Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 

diligent attendance upon ''the early meetings of the 
Penn Club, which were really distinctive and brought 
together men not affectedly Bohemian but indulging in 
the spirit of freedom in thought and speech and the 
flavor of simplicity which just suited his nature." 
Here he became intimate with the contributors to the 
Penn Monthly under the editorship of Wharton 
Barker, with Dr. Eobert Ellis Thompson, and the late 
Judge Henry Reed, and notably with the rarely gifted 
Henry Armitt Brown, whom he guided over the hills of 
Valley Forge when preparing his wonderful oration, 
and to whose memorj^ a few weeks later he paid a touch- 
ing tribute. 
Eietorkai j^ jgjO he became President of the Law Academy, 

Avhich had been founded under the aus]3ices of Peter S. 
Duponceau. About the same time he devoted himself 
to historical studies, particularly those relating to 
Pennsylvania ; his first efforts, as he himself has de- 
scribed them, dating from 1873 when he formed the 
design of writing the history of the Mennonites, a 
people whom he regarded as the most interesting who 
had come to America. The task was one of extreme 
difliculty, requiring a preliminary knowledge of the 
German and Dutch languages. No collection of their 
books had ever been made in this country, and nothing 
of value had been published except some papers in 
Pennsylvania Dutch, which were descriptive rather 
than historical, so that the structure had to be erected 
from its foundation. At the end of ten years Mr. 
Pennypacker had mastered the languages just named, 
had collected books and manuscripts, pored over jour- 
nals, diaries, letter-books, old deeds, wills, court rec- 
ords, bibles, hymn-books, the imprints of the Ephrata 
press, and the publications of Christopher Saur, all of 
which he read with ease in the original, no matter how 
time-stained, or, if in manuscript, no matter how 
crabbed the handwriting; saturating himself at the 



Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 11 

same time with local traditions and tramping all over 
Montgomery, Chester and Lancaster counties upon 
visits to aged citizens, exploring garrets and old farm 
houses, and conferring with Professor Oswald Seiden- 
sticker, Julius F. Sachse, A. H. Cassel of Harleysville, 
who were toilers in similar fields, and particularly with 
Kobert Ellis Thompson, who had written an article on 
'^The German Mystics as American Colonists." The 
results were stated in seven papers entitled ' ' The Set- 
tlement of Germantown, and the Causes which led to 
It"; ''David Rittenhouse, the American Astronomer"; 
"Christopher Dock, the Pious Schoolmaster on the 
Skippack and his Works"; "Der Blutige Schau-Platz 
oder Martyrer Spiegel"; "Mennonite Emigration to 
Pennsylvania " ; " Abraham and Dirck OP Den Graeff ' ' ; 
"Zionitsher Weyrauchs Hiigel oder Myrrhen Berg." 
These were collected into a volume of "Historical and 
Biographical Sketches," published in 1883, modestly 
called "a torso," although, with confidence in the ex- 
tent of his researches, he declared: "I believe the work 
so far as it has gone to be thorough, and if it should not 
progress to the end, I shall at least have the satisfaction 
of having contributed something to the history of a 
people who are in every way worthy of the most careful 
study, and who will sooner or later attract wide atten- 
tion." In 1899, in a separate volume, entitled "The 
Settlement of Germantown, ' ' which is the ripest of his 
historical works, and in the papers entitled "German 
Immigration"; "The Dutch Patroons of Pennsyl- 
vania"; "The Pennsylvania Dutchman and Wherein 
He has Excelled"; "Johann Gottfried Seelig," and 
"Sower and Beissel," constituting important parts of 
his "Pennsylvania in American History," published 
in 1910, he confirmed and extended the outcome of his 
special studies based on original sources of infonna- 
tion to be found in the vast collections of this Society. 
It was this special line of work which gave him his 



12 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 

reputation as the expert in Pennsylvania Dutch his- 
tory, but those who rashly fancied that he had neg- 
lected other phases of our Pennsylvania growth did 
not know him. He was thoroughly well informed of 
all that had been done by English, Welsh, Irish, Scotch- 
Irish, Swedish and Huguenot settlers, and on occasions 
would pour out a raking fire of facts which over- 
whelmed his opponents. As he had made the field of 
Pennsylvania Dutch history his own, and had been the 
first to make it prominent, his reputation as a specialist 
overshadowed his other labors. 
In Politics. In 1880 he became interested in the Anti-Third Term 

campaign waged against the candidacy of General 
Grant, and became an active member of the Anti-Third 
Term League of Philadelphia of which the eminent 
scholar, historian and publicist, Henry Charles Lea, the 
future Attorney General of the United States, Wayne 
MacVeagh, the energetic and ever active banker-cit- 
izen, Wharton Barker, the refined and intellectual 
Henry Eeed, later a judge of Court of Common Pleas 
No. 3 of Philadelphia County, the zealous maltster T. 
Morris Perot, and spirited merchant John McLaughlin 
were leading spirits. They all went to Chicago in July, 
and met on the train the celebrated Colonel Robert G. 
Ingersoll, Green B. Eaum of Indiana and Stewart L. 
Woodford, Lt.-Governor of New York, later our Min- 
ister to Spain at the outbreak of the Spanish- American 
War. Rarely, if ever, did I listen to as brilliant and 
eloquent discussions as took place by the hour in the 
smoking car in which Ingersoll, MacVeagh, and Wood- 
ford were the most animated participants, spurred on 
by questions and criticisms from Barker and Penny- 
packer. The Philadelphians all slept, or rather tried 
in vain to sleep, in the same room in the Palmer House, 
the cots being arranged in rows like those of a hospital 
ward, the men on the ends next to the door insisting 
that the windows be kept open, the men nearest to the 



Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 13 

windows insisting on closing them because of a sharp 
breeze from the Lake, and the men in the middle argu- 
ing first with one faction and then with the other as 
successive experiments were made. In the morning 
we attended the Convention as spectators from the gal- 
lery; saw Don Cameron hand the gavel to Senator 
Geo. F. Hoar, heard Conkling's masterpiece in placing 
in nomination the man ''from Appomattox and its 
famous apple-tree," and Garfield's speech nominating 
John Sherman, which attracted all eyes to him as a 
possible dark horse, which he subsequently proved to 
be. The balloting was tedious and Mr. Pennypacker 
and myself withdrew and returned home before the ad- 
journment, followed by the news of the nomination of 
Garfield and the rout of that stalwart band of 306 who 
never wavered in their support of Grant. On that re- 
turn journey I first became acquainted with the depth 
and variety of the stores of knowledge possessed by 
Pennypacker. He poured forth an inexhaustible stream 
of information on Constitutional law, history, philos- 
ophy and literature to which I listened completely over- 
whelmed. But the incident which impressed me most, 
and which I recall as though it were of yesterday, was 
that one afternoon a woman who occupied the opposite 
section from ours with a boy of about four or five years 
of age became train-sick and suffered from headache, 
and the future Governor of Pennsylvania, after binding 
her head with a handkerchief steeped in iced water, 
drew the boy to the opposite end of the car and kept 
him amused for more than an hour with stories of birds 
and animals and Indians, thus giving the mother a 
chance to sleep. 

In 1882, Mr. Pennypacker was active in the Inde- 
pendent Movement, which nominated John Stewart, at 
present an Associate Justice of our Supreme Court, for 
Governor, ran for the Legislature on an independent 
ticket in his legislative district and was defeated, but 



Law Practice. 



14 Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 

at a public meeting reading his famous open letter to 
Governor Hoyt, which led the latter to proclaim him- 
self as in favor of the movement, causing one of the 
greatest political uproars of the time. 

At the Bar for many years Mr. Pennypacker 's prac- 
tice was small and rather slow in development. But in 
time his industry, learning and sound judgment 
brought to him important clients. In 1884, in the lead- 
ing case of Commonwealth ex rel. Sellers vs. The 
Phoenix Iron Company, reported on appeal in 105 Pa. 
State, 111, he established, after some years of discus- 
sion, the principle that a minority stockholder in a pri- 
vate corporation, who was denied access to corporate 
records and information as to corporate affairs, might 
have a mandamus to compel the production of such 
books and papers as were essential to him for an ac- 
curate ascertainment of his rights as a stockholder, a 
victory which was confirmed in a second phase of the 
same litigation in 113 Pa. State, 563. These cases were 
the forerunners of that long line of authorities which 
have been relied upon by counsel in conducting investi- 
gations of the affairs of the huge trade combinations 
which in recent years have become known as Trusts. 
A year or two later he was retained as private counsel 
by an eminent banking house in a matter which at- 
tracted the attention of English solicitors, who were 
much impressed by the clearness and cogency of Mr. 
Pennypacker 's views as expressed in a written opinion, 
and still later he prepared a most elaborate, original 
and satisfactory trust agreement for the guidance and 
control of trustees charged with the management of 
most important concessions from the Government of 
China touching the establishment of a Chinese Amer- 
ican Bank, — a paper which, being one of the earliest, if 
not the earliest, of its kind, attracted the attention of 
Mr. Evarts, Mr. Olney and Mr. Cushing, then in the 
heyday of their fame as active practitioners, and which 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 15 

has served as a basic model for subsequent business 
enterprises on similar lines. 

At the same time he was carrying on special work Law Reporter, 
on the literature of the law, acting as reporter-in-chief 
for Court of Common Pleas No. 3 of Philadelphia 
County, his labors in this field being reported in Vol. 2 
(1876) to Vol. 23 (1888) inclusive of the Weekly Notes 
of Cases. In 1879 he published his Supplementary 
Index to the Common Law Reports arranged under 
titles, a work of laborious industry, which unquestion- 
ably laid a broad foundation for the legal knowledge 
which he subsequently displayed as a judge in admin- 
istering common law principles. This was followed in 
1881-84 by the publication of four volumes of an aver- 
age of 580 pages each, of decisions of the Supreme 
Court of Pennsylvania, containing cases not to be 
found in the official State Reports because excluded 
under the act of June 12th, 1878, and known to the pro- 
fession as Pennypacker 's Reports. He once told me, 
with a twinkle in his eye, that he was often amused 
while on the bench by the efforts of counsel to cite cases 
from his own volumes, as if they had a higher authority 
than those officially reported. Later, he made a most 
important contribution to our judicial history by ex- 
tracting from our Colonial Records and Colonial Ar- 
chives 76 cases, coming before the judges between the 
years 1683 and 1713, and published in 1892 in a sep- 
arate volume entitled Colonial Cases; a task of per- 
tinacious digging through masses of other matter, 
much of it most wearisome, contained in 26 volumes, 
imperfectly indexed, and which he therefore had to ex- 
amine page by page. He also delivered an Historical 
Address upon Congress Hall and its Associations, at 
the last session of the Court of Common Pleas No. 2 
in that venerated building, September 16th, 1895, which 
takes its place with Mr. Justice Mitchell's address upon 
the passing of the old District Court as a classic con- 
tribution to the historv of our old learal shrines. 



16 Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 

Judicial In January, 1889, he was appointed by Governor 

Beaver to the vacancy in Court of Common Pleas No. 2 
of Philadelphia County occasioned by the election of 
James T. Mitchell to the Supreme Court, an appoint- 
ment made by a Governor who in 1882 had been de- 
feated for that office in part by the exertions of the 
sturdy appointee, who was selected in obedience to the 
spirit of harmony and reconciliation which had re- 
united the wings of the Eepublican Party in Pennsyl- 
vania, as well as in recognition of his abilities and at- 
tainments. The appointment was followed by a pop- 
ular election for the term of ten years, and again in 
1899 by a re-election to a second term. In the year 
1897 he became President Judge of his Court, through 
the retirement of the venerable jurist J. I. Clark Hare. 
His colleagues during his thirteen years of judicial ser- 
vice were Judges Hare, Fell, subsequently Chief Jus- 
tice, Jenkins, Mayer Sulzberger who like Erskine 
surrendered a splendid career at the bar to wear a 
judicial robe, and the late Judge Wiltbank, a master 
of equity jurisprudence. If the action and reaction of 
intellect upon intellect in close associations can pro- 
duce, as they must, the most agreeable as well as last- 
ing results, then truly no years of the late Governor's 
entire career were more fruitful, for never in the judi- 
cial history of Philadelphia County was there at any 
one time in any one court a more remarkable combina- 
tion and display of purely intellectual i30wer than in 
the concentrated rays of minds so variously and so 
richly equipped. The Court was like that of the King's 
Bench when Mansfield, Buller, Yates and Ashhurst sat 
side by side. 

The duties of the judges in a court of original juris- 
diction, or what may be called a court of first instance, 
differ from those of judges in an Appellate or Supreme 
Court in this : the judges of the appellate court deal with 
facts established by the verdict of a jury or found by 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 17 

an equity judge in the court below, and apply the fixed 
principles of law to these facts, correcting whatever 
errors in law may have been committed by the judges 
below. The judges in the lower courts, however, are 
charged with the difficult, delicate and onerous duties 
of ascertaining what the facts are in each contested 
litigation in order to prepare the way for a proper 
discharge of duty by the appellate judges. They come 
in contact with active life and with all the contentions, 
prejudices, passions and weaknesses incident to human 
nature in waging battles in the court room, which are 
a civilized substitute for the old savagery which settled 
disputes by force and not by law. Hence a nisi prius 
judge, as he is called, should have a knowledge of 
human nature, a sensitive appreciation of the merits of 
the controversy, infinite patience, the faculty of close 
attention to the evidence, and self-repression so as to 
guard against a too hasty determination of the matters 
in dispute. He must have complete knowledge of prac- 
tice, of the rules of evidence, and common sense in 
their application, and he must be ready and dexterous 
in his expediting of the public business. He must be a 
master, moreover, of the machinery of legal business 
known as ' ' Motions and Eules, ' ' and as well posted in 
equity proceedings as in those at common law. In 
these respects the demands upon the knowledge and 
sufficiency of a Pennsylvania judge are far more con- 
stant and exacting than those prevailing in England 
where the business is highly specialized. 

Judge Pennypacker met these requirements to the 
satisfaction of the profession and of the public. His 
manner at nisi prius was admirable. He rarely inter- 
rupted counsel unless they strayed beyond the limits 
of the case; he ruled points of evidence promptly and 
firmly; his charges to juries were clear and precise. 
He avoided extraneous discussions of the law and mys- 
tifying qualifications of principles. In disposing of 



18 Samuel Whitaker Pemiypacher. 

motions and rules he was prompt and decisive. He 
worked in perfect harmony with his colleagues, and 
the result was a businesslike administration. Although 
thousands of cases came before him, he wrote but few 
opinions comparatively. A few instances will suffice to 
show his judicial manner. 

The case of People's Passenger Railway Co. vs. 
Marshall St. Railway Co. (20 Phila., 203, A. D. 1890) 
involved the right to lay tracks upon certain streets. 
The opinion is characteristic of his method, but it is 
especially interesting as containing the germ of a 
thought expressed thirteen years later in his Inaugural 
Address and in two of the most celebrated of his veto 
messages as Governor. He said: ''Individual prop- 
erty may be taken by the State by the right of eminent 
domain, but this power can only be exercised when it 
appears that the property so taken is in some way 
necessary for the maintenance of the general welfare. 
It would seem, therefore, that the citizen ought at least 
to have the judgment of his representatives in the Leg- 
islature, or of some one representing the Common- 
wealth which exercises the right, that the property so 
taken from him is needed for a public purpose. This 
Act authorizes 'any number of persons not less than 
five,' without regard to their responsibility, to say 
when a highway of the city may be entered upon and 
occupied by a railway. It is quite clear from obsei^a- 
tion of the ways of men and ordinary human experi- 
ence that the action of these 'any number of persons 
not less than five' will be determined, not by a careful 
consideration of whether the public welfare demands 
it, but by the prospect of profit and advantage to be 
secured by themselves. If the duty of judging in so 
important a matter may in this way be delegated by 
the Legislature, and the number of railroad, railway, 
telephone, telegraph companies and other similar cor- 
porations, requiring the exercise of the right of emi- 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 19 

nent domain, continues to increase, it can be readily 
seen that in the near future the control of his property 
by the citizen will be very much limited." 

In Shepp vs. Jones, 3 Dist. Kep., 539 (1894), a dis- 
puted trade mark case, he concisely said: "No man 
has a right to sell his goods as those of a rival by means 
liable to impose on purchasers, and may be restrained 
by injunction, if he does so. The rule is based on 
honesty, and ought to be upheld." 

In Comm. ex rel. vs. Gratz, et al., 5 Dist. Rep., 341 
(1896), he refused to mandamus the Board of Educa- 
tion in the selection of a teacher, because the duty of 
choice lay with the Board and involved such discretion 
that a court could not interfere. 

In Carroll vs. the City of Philadelphia, et al., and 
The Penn Asphalt Paving Co., 6 Dist. Rep., 397 (1897), 
he courageously upheld, against a combination of con- 
tractors, freedom of competitive bidding. The case 
was one of street paving, involving the use of asphalt. 
The specifications called for "sheet lake asphalt," and 
it was held that the advertisement for bids could not, 
by setting up "a standard with a double head," limit 
the standard to two grades known as Bermudez and 
Trinidad, and thus exclude competitive bidding by 
owners of other grades. To do so would be to limit 
the bidding to those who controlled the two classes. 
Aside from this unshackled determination the opinion 
is interesting as displaying his peculiar learning. In 
giving a history of asphalt he invoked an authority 
unknown to counsel, the Dutch author Joannes de Laet, 
whose work on Trinidad had been published in Leyden 
in 1630. 

In refusing the application for a Charter by The 
First Church of Christ Scientist, 6 Dist. Rep., 745 
(1897), he declared that where the jmrpose of a cor- 
poration is only to inculcate a creed or to promulgate 
a form of worship, no question can arise as to the 



20 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

propriety of such purpose, because under the Constitu- 
tion of Pennsylvania private belief is beyond public 
control, and there can be no interference with the rights 
of conscience, but where the purpose of a proposed 
corporation, as set forth in the application, necessarily 
imports a system for the treatment of diseases to be 
carried into effect by persons trained for the purpose, 
who may receive compensation for their services, and 
where the knowledge and training of such healers do 
not conform to the tests required by law, the courts 
will refuse to confirm such charter under the guise of a 
charter for a church or religious body. 

After quoting the provisions of the Act of March 24, 
1877, P. L. 42, which established a policy which the 
courts must be careful not to thwart, he said: ''To 
grant this charter would be to sanction a system of 
dealing with disease totally at variance with any con- 
templated by the Act of 1877 and different from any 
taught in 'a chartered medical school.' It is pos- 
sible," he gravely added, ''that the method proposed 
is correct, but the most important of truths which run 
counter to long established and popular currents of 
thought must ever pass through a period of test and 
trial before they are accepted. Reforms are proverbi- 
ally slow." Then he adds, with a touch of character- 
istic humor, "It may be, as we are told in Science and 
Health, that to look a tiger in the eye with faith is to 
send him frightened into the jungle; but men, as they 
are at present informed, are more apt to rely, however 

mistakenly, upon rifles Should they in the lapse 

of time become convinced by the teachings of Science 
and Health that their course is erroneous, no doubt a 
future legislature will repeal the Act of 1877, but for 
the present its policy must be enforced." 

In Madden vs. Electric Light Co., 7 Dist. Pa., 364 
(1898), he held that where a majority of "the stock- 
holders of a corporation chose to make an improvident 



Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 21 

contract, a minority interest had no redress unless the 
act of the majority was not in good faith. Moreover, 
the internal management of a foreign corporation 
operating under a license in Pennsylvania was exclu- 
sively under the jurisdiction of the foreign court, and 
could not be inquired into in Pennsylvania. The same 
result was reached in Hartley vs. Welsh, 8 Dist. E., 
546 (1899). 

In refusing a new trial in Feingold vs. Traction Co., 
7 Dist. 445 (1898), he said that the true rule touching 
the degree of care demanded from railway officials to- 
ward infant trespassers is that force cannot be used 
to the injury of child trespassers, but that responsibil- 
ity for care over them rested with their parents or 
guardians. Cars are not for the beneiSt of trespassers. 
To require the stopping of a car in order to put off 
intruders might be, upon certain occasions, a great em- 
barrassment to both the company and the passengers. 
*'A school of trespassing children could lawfully stop 
the running of a railroad." 

In Granger vs. Pigot, 10 Dist. R. 327 (1901), he en- 
forced the equitable principle that a trustee cannot be 
permitted to buy the trust property at his own sale, or 
secure to himself any individual benefit from such pur- 
chase. ''Officers ought to be protected from the 
temptation to exercise their control over the acts of the 
corporation in such a way as to benefit themselves as 
individuals, at the expense of the estates for which the 
corporation may be trustee. We hold, therefore, 
that it is contrary to public policy, and against good 
morals, to permit the secretary of a financial corpora- 
tion to buy, for his own benefit, stock held by the cor- 
poration in a trust capacity. ' ' 

In Connor vs. Sterling, 10 Dist., 437 (1901), he dealt 
with evidence in a murder case. He ruled that a photo- 
graph, proved to have been taken from life and to re- 
semble the person intended, might be used in evidence 



22 Samuel Wkitaker Pennypacker. 

for the purpose of identification; but where its offer 
might affect so serious a question as one of life or 
death, the offer ought to be accompanied with proof of 
the circumstances under which the photograph was 
taken, and of its subsequent custody and history ; nor 
should extraneous matter be written upon its back, 
containing unproved statements likely to create in the 
minds of the jury impressions unfavorable to the de- 
fendant. 

It must not be concluded by laymen from the fore- 
going examples of his judicial work that Judge Penny- 
packer discovered any new legal principles or invented 
anything in the realm of law. He was too good a judge 
to do that. It is not the function of a judge to legislate. 
His province is to declare and not to make the law. No 
better description of what a judge should be was ever 
given than by Alexander Simpson, Jr., in the following 
words : 

"An ideal court, it has been said, is one in which 
justice is judicially administered. Necessarily, there- 
fore, an ideal judge is one who judicially admin- 
isters justice. But what a wide vista that opens ! May 
I delay you a moment to briefly point out what it does 
mean as applied to a Common Pleas Judge in this State ? 
It means not only that the judge must be honest, in- 
dustrious, learned and sober, but that he must have 
patience to hear all that is to be said, keeping his mind 
receptive until the last word is spoken in argument, 
though his own rulings are being criticised, at the same 
time by appropriate inquiry bringing out all that is 
valuable in the argument, and yet must have a keen 
legal sense enabling him to understand, and often on 
the spur of the moment to apply to the particular case 
under consideration the foundation principles ab- 
stracted from the arguments and authorities presented. 
It means that he must be in touch alike with the indi- 
vidual citizen and the community as a man, solicitous 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 23 

to preserve individual rights and yet equally solicitous 
to conserve the general public good ; anxious that mat- 
ters of discretion may be as few as possible, yet doubly 
anxious because of increased responsibility when they 
do arise; with abundant friendships, yet blind to the 
counsel and suitors before him, and to everything, 
whether of poverty, wealth, influence, friendship or 
otherwise, possessed by them, save, and save only, the 
facts and the law applicable to the particular case. He 
must have a broad and philosophical mind in a sound 
and healthy body; must be able to see not merely the 
rights and justice of the particular case, with a keen 
desire to decide it in that way, but to see also the effects 
its decision will have upon the body of the law; must 
be able to avoid posing for or being influenced by pres- 
ent public applause, and yet constantly recognizing 
that the greatest good to the greatest number, within 
the limitations necessary to protect the minority, is the 
end and aim of all republican government. He must 
steadily bear in mind the fact that the judiciary is n(Jt 
the law-maldng body in the community, and yet recog- 
nize that under the common law his decisions, on the 
novel questions constantly arising, may establish rules 
of action with the same effect as legislation. He must 
have the horse-sense to know that men in other walks 
of life than his own are actuated by motives that influ- 
ence him but little ; that, therefore, juries drawn from 
all classes of the community are better able than he is 
to judge of those motives, and yet be willing to take his 
just share of responsibility for every verdict rendered 
before him, and to set aside or modify it when justice 
so demands. It means that he must profoundly love 
the institutions of his country ; must have a genius for 
and love of the law he administers ; must have a proper 
respect for the place that he occupies, and yet be ap- 
proachable ; must be modest and civil, yet dignified and 
firm in his demeanor; must be prompt, clear and con- 



24 Samuel WMtaker Pennypacker, 

sistent in his rulings, and plain, direct and concise in 
his charges, and yet must recognize that he is but 
human, and, therefore, the other lawyers who practice 
before him may be right and he be wrong; must loyally 
follow the decisions of the appellate courts, whether or 
not appealing to his legal sense, to the end that the law 
may not be looked upon as uncertain, nor made the 
subject of reproach; and more than all these, with an 
abiding sense of responsibility to his conscience and 
his God, he must so act as to avoid the least appearance 
of evil, that every one, including the unsuccessful 
suitors before him, will at once recognize that he does 
in fact possess all these qualities. He who enters a 
court presided over by such a judge as I have described 
knows at once that he has entered a place instinct with 
justice; though blind as the Goddess herself, he sees 
and feels that there justice is judicially administered." 
The words just quoted are taken from Mr. Simpson's 
speech in placing Judge Pennypacker in nomination 
for a second term, and their value as a portraiture of 
the man is fixed by the circumstance that Mr. Simpson 
is well known as the most candid and outspoken critic 
of the judges that the Bar has seen during the past 
fifty years. 
Nomination Wc are uow to vicw Judgc Penuypackcr in a totally 
different role. In June, 1902, he was nominated by the 
Republican Party for the office of Governor, after a 
spirited contest in the Convention with the late Mr. 
Justice John P. Elkin of the Supreme Court. The 
younger men of the party led by Elkin, who then held 
the office of Attorney General under Governor Stone, 
favored Elkin, the older men, led by Senator Quay, fa- 
vored Pennypacker. A sharp encounter occurred be- 
tween the leaders, in which the latter won. I recall as 
one of the pleasantries of the occasion that Frank B. 
McClain, then a member of the House from Lancaster 
County, and now Lt.-Governor of the State, a man of 



as Governor. 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 25 

the most engaging presence and captivating powers of 
oratory, in seconding Mr. Elkin's nomination plucked 
an American Beauty rose from Ms button-hole and 
holding it above his head, exclaimed: "The red rose 
of Lancaster blooms for the plowboy from Indiana 
County. ' ' In nominating Pennypacker I countered by 
describing the raw recruit in blue who on the night of 
July 1st, 1863, had slept on the steps of the Capitol he 
had volunteered to defend against the invading hordes 
of Lee, and snatched a white rose from a bowl which 
stood on the table of the presiding officer. It was the 
white rose that won, although the victor had in his veins 
the blood of "time honored Lancaster." 

The campaign was a warm one. Both Judge Penny- 
packer and his opponent, the Hon. Robert E. Pattison, 
who had twice been Governor, appeared upon the 
stump, the latter a veteran campaigner, the former 
without much previous experience. A writer in the Yale 
Review referring to Pennypacker has remarked: "His 
lot as a candidate was not a particularly happy one be- 
cause he had had no experience as a campaigner. He 
had been accustomed to speaking his mind freely and 
directly without equivocation, subterfuge, or indirec- 
tion. The voters of the State were not prepared for 
such frank declarations, but they could not escape the 
conviction that he was an entirely honest man, and 
moreover, a courageous one, even though they did not 
approve his backers." The writer's impressions 
correspond with my own, but he either failed to notice, 
or else omitted to express, that as the campaign went 
on the speaking improved and the candidacy became 
stronger until toward the close the result was clearly 
in sight. At a meeting in Chester during the last week. 
Democratic hopes having sunk perceptibly. Candidate 
Pennypacker provoked shouts of laughter by compar- 
ing the Democratic party to a turtle which had been 
run over in the village street, and a crowd having gath- 



26 Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 

ered, an Irishman, who observed a slight wiggling of 
the tail, exclaimed : ' ^ The baste is dead but is not yet 
sinsible of it." 

Judge Pennypaeker was elected by a plurality of 
more than 150,000 votes. 
As GoverDor. rpj^g jj^au who had been elected Governor of Pennsyl- 
vania was thus described by the gifted journalist, James 
Creelman, who personally traveled from New York to 
Harrisburg for the express purpose of seeing with his 
own eyes the most talked about Governor in all the 
States, and this too when he had been but three months 
in office: *'A stalwart burly man .... of impressive 
physique, wide-shouldered, deep-chested, strong-limbed 
— such a husky frame of bone and brawn as the Boers 
have. He is Dutch on his father's side: otherwise he 
is English, German and Welsh — all stubborn bloods. 
His immense head, high cheek bones and narrow, pen- 
dulous gray beard suggest at once the Mandarin of 
Northern China. The dark eyes, the high forehead, 
wide at the base and narrow at the top ; the dark skin, 
heavy jaws and short nose heighten the impression of 
Mongol Magisterialism. It is easy to find such a 
powerful, bony, almost savagely impassive counte- 
nance in the Yamens of Manchuria. The very look is 
Mandarin-like. The Governor was dressed in sober 
gray, and where stockings usually show themselves, 
the legs of old fashioned top boots worn in warm 
weather revealed the staid unfrivolous Pennsylvanian. 
The white refined hands alone gave a hint of the scholar 
and naturalist. All else was half farmer, half man- 
darin The Governor's family history reaches 

back through two hundred years of Pennsylvania his- 
tory. One of his ancestors was employed by William 
Penn. He was born sixty years ago and received an 
academic education, after which he Avas a school 
teacher. When the Civil War broke out he volun- 
teered as a soldier. He served in the regiment which 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 27 

first engaged the Confederate Army in the battle of 
Gettysburg. After the war he was graduated from the 
law school of the University of Pennsylvania and was 
admitted to the bar. In 1866 he was elected President 
of the Bancroft Literary Union and President of the 
Law Academy. In 1889 he was appointed Judge of the 
Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia by Governor 
Beaver. In the same year he was elected to the same 
position for a term of ten years. At the time of his 
nomination for Governor by the Republicans he was a 
President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of 
Philadelphia. He is President of the Historical So- 
ciety of Pennsylvania and of the Philobiblon Club, Vice- 
President of the Sons of the Revolution and of the 
Colonial Society, Past Commander of the Frederick 
Taylor Post No. 19, Grand Army of the Republic, 
member of the Society of Colonial "Wars, and member 
of the Society of the War of 1812. He is also a Trustee 
of the University of Pennsylvania, and a member of 
the Valley Forge Commission. He is the author of 
more than fifty books and papers. His library of early 
Pennsylvania publications contains over eight thou- 
sand books and manuscripts. ... So that it will be 
seen that this strong-limbed cool Governor who has put 
his name and seal upon a law intended to intimidate 
the press of Pennsylvania, this lawy^er who reminded 
his people that the Philadelphia cartoonist who cari- 
catured his person would, a hundred years ago, have 
been drawn and quartered and had his head stuck on a 
pole, is not a political lout, not an ignorant iniffian, but 
a man of learning, of refined tastes, of quiet personal 
courage, of stainless official record on the bench and 
wide experience of the dignities and amenities of life. ' ' 
Such was the impression made in a single interview 
upon a visitor coming from another State, and who 
regarded the Governor's relations to the press-libel 
law with a hostile eye. From the sketch which I have 



28 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 

given of his career, and from the graphic strokes of the 
pen portraiture I have just exliibited it is impossible 
to extract any elements which could be fashioned into 
a tool of unprincipled politicians, or into a fool in the 
conduct of the public business. And yet such was the 
effort of his critics to make him appear, when they 
disliked his conclusions. A review of his official acts, 
now that time has cooled the blood and purified the 
vision, will be his all-sufficient vindication. When 
waves beat high and boil furiously it is evident that 
they encounter strong resistance, and when the storm 
subsides the solid rock appears against which they had 
dashed themselves in vain. 

The Inaugural Address, delivered January 20th, 
1903, was a State paper of unusual merit. Apart from 
its literary excellence, which was to be expected from 
the pen of so accomplished a writer, it stated a definite 
policy, which was rigorously adhered to. The Gov- 
ernor had a statesmanlike view of the objects to be 
aimed at, and a determined purpose to reach them, 
however difficult the task. Much of the resistance that 
he encountered and much of the criticism and abuse 
that were poured upon him was due to the persistent 
courage with which he pursued his plans. A less clear- 
sighted man would have become bewildered, a less 
brave man would have been intimidated. He fought 
corporate interests, personal prejudices, entrenched 
customs, popular fallacies, combinations of politicians, 
protests of well meaning but misinformed citizens, and 
the concentrated fire of a hostile press without fear 
and without flinching. Now that ten years have passed 
since the close of four years of strenuous conflict it is 
possible to review the field with calmness and estimate 
the value of the victories that he won. 
Hig I cannot do better in indicating to you how carefully 

Programme. \^q jj^d thought out his programme in advance, and how 
far he succeeded in carrying it into effect, than by ana- 



Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 29 

lyzing his Inaugural Address, and, after stating sep- 
arately each proposition, describing what he did or 
attempted to do, and what he finally accomplished. 
The Inaugural is the key to his Gubernatorial career. 

He opened with a characteristic tribute to the great- 
ness of Pennsylvania, a State with a population greater 
than that of England in the time of Elizabeth, twice 
that of Holland when the leading maritime power of 
the world, and twice that of the United States when 
Washington became President; a State of boundless re- 
sources, with princely annual revenues, and substan- 
tially out of debt ; a State which paid each year for the 
maintenance of public schools and charities more than 
any other American Commonwealth, accomplishing 
these results without a State tax upon land or houses, 
and with a tax rate in her large cities less than in any 
other of the leading municipalities of the country. The 
Governorship of such a State was, therefore, an office 
which was one of the great executive places of the 
earth. No man, whatever his capacity, or what the 
manner in which he had been called, might approach it 
save with humble steps, and with a grave sense of its 
importance and responsibilities, and he pledged him- 
self to see to it, so far as he might be able, that under 
the Constitution the laws were faithfully administered. 

With judicial circumspection, a trait that was born 
in him and cultivated by long practice, he expressed a 
wish ''always within reasonable limits to confer with 
all persons who may have facts to impart or conclu- 
sions to present," and he declared it to be his ''purpose 
to consult especially with those who in common par- 
lance are called politicians." He declared that "there 
is no more dangerous public vice than the prevalent 
affectation of disrespect for those who are engaged in 
the performance of the work of the cities, the Common- 
wealth and the Nation, because it is in effect an attack 
on popular government, and its tendency is to under- 



30 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

mine our institutions." I once heard President Mc- 
Kinley avow similar sentiments. This was not a sur- 
render to evil influences ; it was a wise and philosophic 
opening of the mind to sources of knowledge which an 
autocratic, self-sufficient and impracticable egotist 
would have rejected. As a matter of fact the Governor 
fought and overcame politicians quite as frequently as 
he agreed with them when his judgment convinced him 
that their plans were proper. 
Le^LatatiTO He iusistcd that ''there is too much legislation," 

^^'^' that it was "far better to leave the law alone unless the 

necessity for change was plain." In this he agreed 
with Blackstone, Sharswood, and the best informed of 
our experienced publicists. As a result of the firm 
hand that he imposed on legislative action, both by ad- 
vice and the exercise of the veto power, he cut the bulk 
of our legislation to half of what it had been before him, 
and what it became after him. The soundness of his 
position has been amply sustained by our recent experi- 
ences in struggling with a perfect mania for legislation. 
A statute is the panacea of the legislative quack. To en- 
able you to appreciate this let me tell you that within the 
past five years the State legislatures and Congress have 
passed more than sixty thousand laws. He declared that 
"the modern tendency to invent neiv crimes ought to he 
curbed." To confuse the distinction between mere 
breaches of contract and crimes was to bring the law 
itself into disrepute. Without reverting to historical 
illustrations he clearly had in mind the intolerable con- 
dition once existing in England when more than three 
hundred offences were punishable by death. He was 
opposed to the reckless disposition to impose imprison- 
ment upon acts "which were never known to be of- 
fenses until they became statutory." To those of you 
who are not familiar with the extent of this vice let 
me say that within the past ten years more than one 
thousand laws have been passed in tlie aggregate in 



Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 31 

the States and by Congress to legislate men into 
jail. 

Here are some samples of the laws that he vetoed, vetoes 
An Act was passed making it a misdemeanor to adver- 
tise by any written notices offering legal services in a 
divorce case. The Governor met it by saying: "It is 
true that to advertise publicly is unprofessional and 
not to be conmiended, but it is not essentially a crime 
and not such an offense against morals and propriety 
as to render the offender subject to imprisonment. 
. . . . If our morals are to be improved in this re- 
spect by legislation, it must be by making more strin- 
gent the laws allowing divorces and not by the effort 
to make criminal that which is only incidental to the 
system. ' ' An Act made it the duty of every justice of 
the peace within one week after he had rendered judg- 
ment to file a transcript of the proceeding with the 
prothonotary of the county court, under pain of fine 
and imprisonment. The Governor disposed of it by 
saying : ' ' There may be many reasons why a transcript 
could not be filed within a week. The serious illness of 
a justice, the destruction by fire of his docket, and many 
other unforeseen occurrences might prevent it, but ob- 
jection is put upon the broader ground that the failure 
to perform such a ministerial duty is not in itself es- 
sentially a crime and ought not to be so treated." An 
Act prescribed imprisonment for not less than ten days 
or more than ninety days for practicing the occupation 
of barber without having obtained a certificate of regis- 
tration. The Governor declared that compliance with 
the Act could properly be compelled by the imposition 
of penalties, but a failure to comply ought not to be 
treated as a crime. An Act was aimed at the importa- 
tion and sale of carcasses of lambs or sheep with the 
hoofs on. The Governor tersely remarked that, *'if a 
farmer chose to buy a slaughtered lamb from his 
neighbor to take to market, and the hoofs were left 



32 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

on, the seller becomes a criminal The bill 

is not approved." An Act made it unlawful for gyp- 
sies to encamp without written permission of the owner 
of the land, and punished the offence by fine and im- 
prisonment. The Governor disposed of the matter by- 
saying : ''Under our law the owner of lands may make 
a lease for three years by parole (word of mouth). A 
lease at will or a mere license is a less estate than a 
lease of three years, and there seems to be no reason 
why the owner could not give permission by word of 
mouth." A bill prohibited liquor dealers under pain of 
imprisonment from giving away eatables in the form 
of meals or lunch, except crackers, cheese and pretzels. 
The Governor declared: ''There seems to be no reason 
why it should be an offense for a man who is making 
a sale to give something in addition if he chooses to do 
it. If it is wrong to make a gift, why should there be 
an exception in favor of the pretzels and cheese? A 
roll or a piece of bread would appear to be as innocent 
as cheese. It is not wise to enact legislation which is 
so easily evaded. There would be no difficulty in sell- 
ing the crackers, cheese and pretzels, and giving away 
the liquor, or in selling all for the price of the liquor." 
Another bill imposed imprisonment in the county jail 
for five days for spitting in public places. The Gov- 
ernor said : ' ' The purpose of the bill appears to be an 
effort to make people nice and cleanly in their habits 
by legislation. Among the thousands of people who go 
to a circus, one or more may have a cold: catarrh or 
sudden contact between the teeth and tongue may cause 
a flow of saliva. Imprisonment seems to be severe 
punishment for yielding to what cannot always be pre- 
vented. If spittoons were provided, there would be 
stronger reason for such legislation. It would be bet- 
ter to have a well digested health regulation." An Act 
authorized sheriff's to acquire and maintain two blood- 
hounds for tracking criminals. The Governor de- 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 33 

clared: ''It is far better that a person charged with 
crime should escape than that the means provided for 
in this act should be used for his capture." Another 
Act related to the use of bottles and jars in the de- 
livery of milk and cream. The Governor described the 
bill as ''an example of that inconsiderate spirit which 
would visit with fine and imprisonment an act to which 
no criminality can properly attach. Articles used in 
trade ought not to be protected by imprisoning the 
people who use them, nor should the fact of their crim- 
inality depend upon a notice given by an interested 
owner, complaining of a misuse of the article hired." 

I might give you many other illustrations, but these 
will suffice. The general principle underlying the Gov- 
ernor's vetoes was that the indiscriminate use of im- 
prisonment took from the ]3rison much of its eifect as 
a restraint upon those who did evil. Juries would re- 
fuse to convict where they believed the charge ought 
not to be sustained, even though the facts came within 
the terms of a statute, and thus men would be daily 
taught to disregard the law. 

The next subject dwelt upon in the Inaugural was Reapportion- 
the Constitutional direction that at the completion of 
each United States census there should be a Senatorial 
and Representative reapportionment of the State. 
This was a matter of vital consequence as going to the 
root of representative government, and avoiding the 
evils of "rotten boroughs." It was also a matter of 
much difficulty, and the task had been vainly attempted 
by Governor Pattison. Such was the uproar and op- 
position that attended his efforts that successive Gov- 
ernors had evaded the task, which became all the more 
difficult with the lapse of time. Such were the inequal- 
ities and injustices existing that Governor Penny- 
packer resolved upon correction. It was a long fight 
and a hard fight. Practical politicians, election officers, 
men who declared that their constituencies would be 



34 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

destroyed, or party majorities disturbed if not endan- 
gered, were all in league to obstruct him. He was even 
told that it was mathematically impossible. At two 
regular sessions of the Legislature no one would under- 
take the preparation of a bill, though many were the 
conferences between the Governor and the leaders. 
The end of his term was approaching, and he saw this 
great Constitutional mandate deliberately disobeyed. 
Finally he undertook the task himself, mapped out a 
bill, submitted it to criticism, to discussion, to argu- 
ment, to modification, and with a mastery of figures 
little suspected in political calculations and a deter- 
mined purpose to do his duty which confounded the 
foes of change, he at last brought all opposition to an 
end, called a special session of the Legislature to con- 
sider nine important and pressing subjects, of which 
this was one, and had the satisfaction of seeing written 
upon the statute book a just and rational rearrange- 
ment of the political geography of the State. I recall 
most vividly the scenes of those three years and a half 
of battle, the maps that were made, the maps that were 
unmade, the reams of paper containing election re- 
turns, estimates of disaster, predictions of party defeat 
in this district or in that, the unseating of this man, and 
the seating of that, the groans of the dethroned, the 
moans of the wounded, and the final triumph of the 
clear-headed determined occupant of the Governor's 
chair, sustained as he was by the loyal support of a few 
who though often denounced as political leaders proved 
themselves to be true servants of the people. The 
newspapers made little of it comparatively, and the 
people stood in silent indifference to what had been 
done, but nevertheless they owe their present basis of 
representation to the inflexible resolution of Samuel W. 
Pennypacker. 
Ballot The next cardinal purpose of the Governor was the 

simplification of the ballot. The then existing ballot 



Reform. 



Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 35 

law, suggested by well meaning but overzealous re- 
formers, had proved in practice to be both cumbersome 
and inefficient. It needed either careful amendment or 
reconstruction. The Governor emphatically declared 
that ''our system of government depended primarily 
upon the right of every elector to vote according to his 
judgment and preference, without interference by or 
obstruction from any other person or influence, and to 
have all the votes accurately counted." He pointed 
out that in providing the necessary means it ought to 
be remembered that the more simple they are and the 
less complicated the device the more likely are they to 
be effective. He urged that the plan to be adopted 
ought to be one easy for the voters to understand. He 
denounced as "mere vicious theorizing the thought 
that something ought to be done by means of the law 
to encourage any particular form of voting, making it 
easy for one or difficult for another, ' ' and stood for the 
equal rights of Independents, Prohibitionists, So- 
cialists, Democrats or Republicans to vote their full 
party tickets if they so willed. 

Serious attention was given to these recommenda- 
tions, and various efforts were made to simplify pro- 
cedure, notably by the Act of 29th April, 1903, amend- 
ing the existing election laws by regulating the methods 
of nomination, the arrangement of groups of party 
candidates, and by direction as to how ballots should 
be printed ' ' so as to give each voter a clear opportunity 
to designate bis choice of candidates," accompanied by 
printed instructions for the guidance of the unwary or 
uninitiated citizen. The purity and freedom from in- 
terference of elections were guarded by provisions con- 
trolling the police force and the actions of election 
officers. This good work was followed up at the special 
session called in January, 1906, by several Acts provid- 
ing for the personal registration of electors in cities of 
the first, second and third classes, as a condition of 



Domain. 



36 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

their right to vote; by the establishment of uniform 
primaries, by prohibitions of corrupt practices, and by 
the restriction of the political activities of municipal 
officers, clerks and employees. In the study and prep- 
aration of this series of statutes, which constitute an 
important and valuable part of our' election code, the 
Governor was anxious to secure the best and most just 
results, and was ever alert to guard against the mis- 
chiefs of impracticable reforming enthusiasms on the 
one hand, and subtle practical artifices on the other. 
The difficulty of maintaining a steady balance between 
these equally dangerous extremes can only be appre- 
ciated by one who has had the opportunity of actual 
observation. 
Eminent A fifth topic, cmphasizcd in the Inaugural, was that 

of eminent domain, which involved the power of the 
State to take private property for public use upon com- 
pensation to the property owner. Wliile explaining 
that the Constitutions of both the United States and 
the State protected the citizen in his individual right 
of property, he admitted the qualification that where 
there was public need, for the good of the community, 
the State might intervene, and upon compensation, 
compel him to surrender his individual right for the 
general welfare. ''The danger as well as the vice of 
the situation lies in the unrestrained power of a 
few individuals, bound together under the mys- 
terious potencies of corporations, to seize upon private 
property upon a mere declaration of their covetous- 
ness, and foul streams, cut through forests, and destroy 
homesteads." In the Governor's view, before any 
franchise was granted, either by special or general 
law, involving a disturbance of the individual nght of 
property, and before any exercise of the enormous 
power of eminent domain by a private or public cor- 
poration, there ought to be express assent by the State 
itself, based upon an ascertainment of the public need. 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 37 

In this he announced the wholesome principle that, 
"while the test was public necessity to which a citizen 
must yield, the determination of the existence of such 
a necessity should not be left to the ex parte choice of 
a corporation interested in the acquisition, but should 
be lodged in an independent and impartial officer or 
official body to pass on the question in advance of con- 
demnation.'' I call your attention to this as one of the 
best illustrations of the Governor's fairmindedness 
and perfect poise. Wliat he said seems to have been 
regarded as a challenge, for very shortly two bills 
reached him, both of which he vetoed. One of them 
conferred upon cities the right of eminent domain to 
remove dams, booms and other obstructions from 
streams flowing near cities. ''This bill," said he, "if 
it became a law, would grant to the cities a most dan- 
gerous power. The power is given to remove not an 
obstruction within the limits of the municipality, but 
an obstruction upon any stream of water which flows 
near the corporate limits. With the city authorities 
rests the power to determine whether the obstruction 
impedes the natural flow of the stream. The founda- 
tions of a bridge may be an obstruction and a dam 
certainly would constitute an obstruction. Under this 
bill, therefore, since the Delaware river flows near the 
City of Philadelphia, that city would be permitted to 
remove any dams which may exist upon the river. The 
Susquehanna river flows near the City of Harrisburg. 
Under this bill that city would be permitted to remove 
all railroad bridges which cross the river." The other 
bill gave to railroads the power to condemn dwelling 
houses "for yards and shops," or for "any other 
proper corporate purpose," whenever "in the judg- 
ment of the directors" it was necessary to construct, 
straighten, widen or improve the railroad. The Gov- 
ernor said: "When the land of a citizen is taken by a 
railroad, it is taken by the Commonwealth, because the 



38 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

public necessities require the sacrifice. Is it then more 
to the interest of the Commonwealth that there should 
be an absolutely straight line between New York or 
Chicago, because that is the logical end toward which 
one alternative takes us, or is it more to the interest 
of the Commonwealth that the citizen should be per- 
mitted to rear his family at his own fireside undis- 
turbed, with all that this means for the iDreservation 
of the race and its virtues? It seems to me that it is 
possible to take a middle course to avoid both Scylla 
and Charybdis and to this extent at least to put the 
exercise of the right of eminent domain where in prin- 
ciple it belongs. There may be a house about which 
there can be no sentiment and little value owned by a 
man without family, which he proposes to sell at an 
enoi*mous price because it stands in the line of a great 
public improvement. There may be a home typical of 
all that there is good in American life, around which 
cluster the associations of centuries and which ought to 
be preserved regardless of trade. There may be a 
railroad organized at a venture without public need, 
destined to end in failure after the destruction of much 
which is more useful than itself. Is it wise to leave 
the determination of what ought to be saved and what 
may be destroyed to a board of interested directors? 
Is it wise to have judgment rendered by one of the 
parties? The bill ought to have provided for a tri- 
bunal representing the State which could decide upon 
the necessity and, while being just to the railroads, 
could protect the citizen. If we are to go further with 
the grants of the right to take private property, and 
any one who has kept pace with recently projected leg- 
islation can see whither we are else drifting, some such 
plan ought to be adopted. ' ' 

The same view is expressed in his veto of a bill re- 
lating to cemeteries. He declared: ''It has become a 
frequent device, when one man wants to get possession 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 39 

of the property which belongs to another, to organize a 
corporation, and persuade the Commonwealth to sur- 
render to this corporation a power which ought never to 
be exercised except for the purposes of the Common- 
wealth itself, looking to the good of the people. This 
bill proposes to give to another class of corporations 
the right of eminent domain If incorpor- 
ated cemetery associations should desire to extend 
their lands, there seems to be no good reason why they 
should not buy them and pay for them, as all individ- 
uals conducting business interests are compelled to 
do." 

The next subject discussed in the Inaugural con- ^^^*^® , , 

" " ^ Constaliulary. 

cerned the conflicts behveen concentrated capital and 
organized labor, which had been of frequent occurrence 
in Pennsylvania, resulting in cessation of production, 
loss of profits and of wages, violations of law and dis- 
turbance of large communities. The Governor with his 
usual impartiality stated both sides of the controversy: 
— that *'it was to the good of the State to encourage 
production under proper safeguards against violence 
and terror, for nothing but harm could result from un- 
used resources in the hands of either individuals or 
corporations. On the other hand, the State was inter- 
ested in bringing about conditions in which in the dis- 
tribution of rewards from business ventures capital 
should have less of profit and labor more of compensa- 
tion. But no capitalist should be strong enough, and 
no laborer should be insignificant enough to escape 
obedience to the law. No employer and no laborer 
should be encouraged to violate his contract, and above 
all no man should be permitted to interfere upon any 
pretence whatever with another who might choose to 
sell his labor, and violence, from whatever source aris- 
ing, should be promptly and rigidly suppressed, using 
whatever force might be necessary for the purpose." 
The results of these just reflections were embodied in 



40 Samuel Whitaker PennypacJcer. 

the Act of 2nd of May, 1905, which established the now 
celebrated and much admired State constabulary. I 
shall never forget the morning when the Deputy Sec- 
retary of the Commonwealth laid upon the Governor's 
table an armful of commissions and asked for his sig- 
nature. ''What are these, sir?" "Commissions." 
"Commissions for what?" "For Coal and Iron 
police." "Pray what are they?" "Special officers to 
• maintain law and order about the properties of coal 
and iron mines and other industrial establishments." 
' ' Are the names filled in ? " " Yes, Governor. " " Who 
suggested the names ? " " The companies themselves. ' ' 
' * Take them away ! I will never put the police powers 
of the State in the hands of the nominees of one of the 
parties to a controversy. We must have an independent 
constabulary." No finer example of practical wisdom 
in the maintenance of law and order, without taking 
sides in a controversy, can be found in any State, and 
the results as attested by eleven years of experience 
have justified the Governor's sagacity. 
Conservation. Thcu camo the important matter of the Conservation 
of Natural Resources, suggested and enforced years 
before it had attracted the attention of Congress or of 
other States, or had aroused the sleeping faculties of 
the Nation. "The commercial idea put briefly and in 
gross," said the Governor, "is that forests, coal, oil 
and iron are to be sent into the market as soon and as 
rapidly as possible, in order that they may be con- 
verted into money and the man of the day may live in 
luxury and enjoyment. The duty of the statesman is 
to look beyond the indulgence of the time, to regard 
these resources as gifts of Providence, to be husbanded 
with care and used as need requires rather than wasted 
or poured upon glutted markets, with a sense that when 
once exhausted they can never be restored." The 
Governor's suggestion that a slight tax should be im- 
posed upon some of our productions, the proceeds to 



Samuel WhitaJcer Penny packer. 41 

be applied to the betterment of our roads, which he 
argued would not be a serious burden, but would result 
in securing for our own peof)le a proportion of the 
benefit of the natural deposits, was not acted on, but 
the establishment of good roads was embodied in the 
Good Roads bill of 15th of April, 1903, and the creation 
of the State Highway Department. The acquisition 
of large bodies of lands to be reforested, — a policy 
which had been inaugurated by Governor Stone, — was 
promoted by the Act of 13th May, 1903, which directed 
the Commissioner of Forestry to establish a school at 
the Mont Alto Reservation for practical instruction in 
forestry and to prepare forest wardens for the proper 
care of the State lands. 

The next topic dwelt upon in the Inaugural lay very Historic 
close to the Governor's heart and his illustrations dis- 
played his characteristic touches as a historian. ''No 
people," he said, "are ever really great who are neg- 
lectful of their shrines and have no pride in their 
achievements. The history of the world shows that a 
correct sentiment is a more lasting and potent force 
than either accumulated money or concentrated author- 
ity. The theses which Luther nailed to the church door 
at Wittenberg still sway the minds of men and the 
Fuggers disappeared when they died. AVhat would 
have been the influence of Greece without the memories 
of Marathon, or of England without those of Runny- 
mede? Around Fort Duquesne, in Western Pennsyl- 
vania, at one head of the great river of the world was 
to a large extent detennined in the French and Indian 
War the question whether the American continent 
should be dominated by Latin or Teuton, involving the 
destinies of the human race, and around Philadelphia, 
in Eastern Pennsylvania, the real struggle of the Revo- 
lutionary War occurred. The good example set by 
Philadelphia in its care of Independence Hall and Con- 
gress Hall should be followed by the State. The fields 



42 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

of Fort Necessity, where Washington first became 
known ; of Bushy Run, where Bouquet won his impor- 
tant victory, and the camp ground of Valley Forge 
should be tenderly cared for and preserved." He had 
the satisfaction of seeing the Valley Forge Commission 
well established and generously supported. Later he 
successfully headed off a movement in Congress to take 
the control away from Pennsylvania and lodge it in a 
National Commission. He did so in a characteristic 
letter to Senator Penrose, which proved effective: 
''Our State Commission has secured the lines there 
(Valley Forge), has laid out avenues and is doing its 
work well. We want to do everything we can to help 
them and to prevent the interference which comes from 
persons outside the State and certain well-meaning but 
ill-advised women within it. Pennsylvania is rich 
enough and capable enough to take care of Independ- 
ence Hall, Valley Forge, and her battlefields, and make 
them tell their lesson to the nation. After she had 
expended large sums of money in marking and erecting 
monuments at Gettysburg, it was transferred to the 
United States Government and the result was that 
after Grover Cleveland had been elected President the 
bronze New York monument was put in the cemetery 
in the very center of the field, which was in every as- 
pect of it a Pennsylvania battle. I do not propose, if I 
can help it, to have this course repeated as to Valley 
Forge, and should the matter come up in Congress, I 
rely upon you to help me. Should a bill be presented, 
you can probably kill it easily by having added to it 
that the Government also take Bunker Hill from Mas- 
sachusetts and Ston}' Point from New York." 
University of The luaugural next dealt with the unique relation 
occupied by the University of Pennsylvania to the 
State. As early as April 1891, the Governor, in an 
elaborate article contributed to the Penxsylvania Mag- 
azine OF History axd Biography, had examined in 



Permsylvanla. 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 43 

detail and traced with care the history of the Univer- 
sity in its relation to the State, emphasizing the stat- 
utory obligations created by the Legislature in obedi- 
ence to the mandate of the Constitution of 1776 that 
* ' all useful learning shall be duly encouraged and pro- 
moted in one or more universities." He had followed 
this in 1899 by a minute and convincing presentation of 
facts to a special committee of the Trustees to inquire 
into the origin of the University of Pennsylvania in 
support of a demonstrable origin in the charitable 
school established in 1740, subsequently expanded into 
an academy, a college, a university, without losing its 
original feature as a part of the general scheme. With 
this matter in view, he declared : "It shall be my effort 
to restore the relation of patronage and control, the 
outgrowth of colonial conditions and made a constitu- 
tional requirement, and to regain and retain for the 
State the credit of this early and unprecedented recog- 
nition of the cause of learning." In pursuance of this 
purpose he not only attended frequently the meetings 
of the Trustees, but revived the old custom of having 
the Board meet once a year in the State Capitol, when 
he presided ex officio. 

The next topic dwelt upon in the Inaugural, the 
statutory regulation of the public press, I shall re- 
serve for special consideration. 

He then dwelt upon the importance of a real State state 
pride ; the elimination of separate interests of city and 
countiy; the need of Pittsburgh to aid Philadelphia 
in finding an outlet to the sea, and of Philadelphia to 
aid Pittsburgh in her effort to unite the vast popula- 
tion of the head waters of the Ohio, and entreated both 
to act not for themselves alone, but for the good of the 
State and its people. He had the satisfaction of seeing 
both of these purposes generously nurtured by liberal 
legislative appropriations for the enlargement and im- 
provement of the navigation of the Delaware and 
Allegheny rivers. 



44 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

Summary of From the foregoiiig review of the Governor's elab- 
orate and well-considered programme you will perceive 
that he succeeded in all his aims, save the one that I 
have reserved, and even as to this he achieved a partial 
but lasting success. He had reduced the bulk of legis- 
lation ; he had curbed the invention of new crimes ; he 
had reapportioned the State ; he had reformed the bal- 
lot laws ; he had safeguarded the purity of elections ; he 
had restricted the power of eminent domain; he had 
established an impartial police force; he had conserved 
the natural resources of the State; he had improved 
her public roads ; he had honored her historic shrines ; 
he had reconsecrated her greatest educational institu- 
tion; he had awakened State pride and State coopera- 
tion by fostering commerce upon the greatest of our 
natural highways. Add to these the achievements of 
the special session of 1906 — the honor of which belongs 
to him alone — the creation of a Greater Pittsburgh ; the 
protection of the State funds deposited in banks and 
trust companies; the personal registration of voters; 
the Act against corrupt practices at elections; the 
prohibition of officers, clerks, and employees of cities of 
the first class from taking an active part in political 
movements and elections; the control of State appro- 
priations for the erection of County bridges ; the aboli- 
tion of fees in the offices of the Secretary of the Com- 
monwealth and the Insurance Commission; the im- 
provement of primary election laws; the establishment 
of a civil service system; the regulation of nomina- 
tion and election expenses, and requiring that full ac- 
counts to be publicly filed. Here you have a body of 
constructive legislation of lasting value unparalleled 
by any corresponding period of four 3^ears since the 
days of Franklin. I challenge controversy on this 
point. President Roosevelt declared, in speaking of the 
results of the special session only, that no such com- 
plete results of reformatory and progressive legisla- 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 45 

tion in so short a period of time had been attained in 
any other State of the Union. Had he known of what 
else had been done he could scarcely have been more 
emphatic. The Yale Revietv devoted a whole article 
to the record of the special session, and declared that 
through the Governor's vigorous action '4n a single 
month there had been placed on the statute books of 
Pennsylvania a most remarkable set of laws." Even 
the great daily journals, which had been the most exact- 
ing, the most persistent and relentless of his critics, 
were emphatic in his praise. 

But besides these achievements of the highest order, 
there is a second class to which I must call your atten- 
tion. He established the following Departments : Pub- 
lic Printing and Binding ; State Highways ; State Fish- 
eries; Factory Inspection; the State Police. He 
established also the Bureau of Mines; of Vital Statis- 
tics; of Economic Zoology; and a State Museum of 
objects illustrating the fauna and flora of the State, and 
its mineralogy, geology, archeology, arts and history, 
the latter securing for the first time an orderly arrange- 
ment of the records of the State. He regulated the 
hours of labor and the employment of minors in the in- 
dustries and manufactories of the State. He provided 
for the erection of a State Hospital for the treatment 
and care of the criminal insane, which has became one 
of the model institutions of the country. He provided 
a system of humane education in our public schools, 
forbidding experiments in such schools upon any liv- 
ing creature. He authorized and appointed a Com- 
mission to codify the laws of divorce and to co-operate 
with the other States in securing uniformity of divorce 
legislation in the United States. By increasing the 
salaries of the judges he gave them an adequate income 
so essential to good judicial work. He signed a well 
drawn and practicable Pure Food Act and avoided the 
mischief of baking-powder bills. He revised the tax- 



tlve Work. 



46 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

ing systems of the counties of less than one million 
inhabitants, and by the creation of the Water Supply 
Commission he rescued the streams and springs of the 
State from speculative or monopolistic appropriation. 
It would be easy to multiply illustrations of his 
statesmanship, breadth of view, rational progressive- 
ness, care of the public health and morals, conserva- 
tion of natural resources, of his pride in the State's 
history, and his eagerness to promote her welfare, but 
these must sujBfice as illustrations of his acts as a con- 
stituent part of the legislature, through his power to 
approve or veto bills. It is now in order to consider 
him as an administrator. 
Administra- Jn this rcspcct he was altogether admirable. But 
little is known by the public of the exacting duties im- 
posed upon the Governor, and it will not be out of place 
to describe some of their features which will stand as 
a fair sample of his entire term, as he was expected to 
reside at the Capital, and devote himself continuously 
to the routine duties of the office. The Legislature met 
but once in two years, remained in session from the 
second week in January until the middle of May, and 
devoted on an average but four days a week to its 
labors, assembling on Monday evenings and adjourn- 
ing on Thursday afternoons, so as to allow the non- 
resident members to attend to their private business at 
week ends. As against an eight months' legislative 
service, the Governor, who even in the summer months 
enjoyed but slight relaxation, toiled more than five times 
as long. While the Legislature was in session his offi- 
cial routine was much interrupted by the calls of 
Senators and Representatives to discuss pending bills 
whose name was legion, and by the visits of strangers 
attracted by a meeting of the Legislature, and partic- 
ularly by swarms of citizens from all parts of the 
State interested in educational and charitable appro- 
priations for universities, colleges, schools, hospitals 



Samuel Whitaher Pennypacker. 47 

and asylums, and markedly suspicious of everybody's 
avarice except their own. They were followed by flights 
of office seekers and their backers, looking for judge- 
ships, clerkships, prison appointments, justiceships 
of the peace because of vacancies, membership on 
State boards or commissions, or requesting letters of 
reconmiendation to coi^oration officers, based on some 
slight campaign acquaintance with the Governor or 
from having served as a juror in his court, or from 
having known him when a schoolboy. The Governor, 
however busy, having been elected by the people was 
"a public servant," and had, therefore, to postpone the 
reading of his mail, which was choked with similar re- 
quests, and reserve for a quieter hour the consideration 
of approval or veto of the bills, which were being 
weekly certified to his table by the presiding officer of 
the Senate and the Speaker of the House as having 
been passed by both those bodies. When the Legisla- 
ture adjourned, for thirty days thereafter the strain 
was still greater, for it was found that in the closing 
days five hundred bills or more had been hurriedly 
passed, and that the Governor must examine all these 
within the time limit lest they become laws, and further 
that the appropriations exceeded the revenues by mil- 
lions of dollars, thus imposing on the Executive the 
odious and unjust task of paring them down, or of 
vetoing them outright, provoking very often a howl of 
rage. ' ' If he had only let our bill go through, ' ' shrieked 
citizen A., who was deaf to similar shouts from the 
majority of the alphabet. 

Hard though the task was, he accomplished it. Being Hu^or. 
in the best of health and spirits, punctual, attentive, 
diligent and capable, accustomed to hard work, and 
ready with his tongue and pen, he disposed of duties 
that were new to him with noticeable ease. At times 
his humor, at times his philosophy aided him. A bill 
had been passed prohibiting the killing of bears, ex- 



48 Samuel Whitalcer Pennypacher. 

cept in the montli of November, and with any other 
weapon than a gun. The original form in which he 
dictated his veto message was as follows: ''I would 
gladly sign a bill properly drawn for the protection of 
this interesting animal, but unfortunately this Act 
compels a judge to send a man to jail who kills a bear 
in any other month of the year than November, and 
with any other weapon than a gun. Suppose a man 
with an axe in his hand, and chopping wood in the 
month of July, is attacked by a bear with cubs, the 
bear won't wait till November, and won't let him go 
get a gun. ' ' I begged him to allow it to remain in that 
form, but he thought it too crude for a veto message, 
and whipped it into the shape in which it finally ap- 
peared. The humor is still there but the point is 
blunted. A railroad bill authorized one railroad com- 
pany to purchase a part or parts of another railroad 
company's property. He said : ' ' I do not know what is 
meant by 'a part or parts.' There was once a man who 
was cut into pieces. One piece consisted of a fragment 
of his finger nail, the other piece of the remainder of 
his body." Of his philosophy I will give but two illus- 
trations. A State officer had refused to perform a min- 
isterial duty under a mandatory statute. The duty was 
so plain that I prepared to apply for a mandamus. 
Before doing so, I had a talk with the Governor, and 
after reading the statute declared: ''I do not see why 
he cannot see his duty, the law is specific." Looking 
out of the window the Governor asked: ''Carson, can 
you see those hills on the other side of the Susque- 
hanna?" ''Certainly," I replied, "but what has that 
to do with the case?' "You can see them, you say? 
I slept on those hills three nights before the battle of 
Gettysburg." He then gave me a graphic account of 
the experiences of his regiment. I was interested in 
the narrative, but after it was over, said : ' ' That is very 
diverting, but what has it got to do with the case?" 



Samuel Whitaker Fennypacher. 49 

His answer was: '^You say that you can see those 
hills. Your eyesight is perfect, but suppose I asked 
the same question of Mr. D.?" (naming a spectacled 
clerk in the office). "His answer would be 'No, Gov- 
ernor, I cannot see the hills. ' I would not be disturbed, 
because the poor fellow is near-sighted." And then 
bursting into laughter, he said: ''Your man is intel- 
lectually near-sighted ; pity him, but mandamus him." 

On another occasion, after three hours of continuous 
labor in silence, the Governor dropped his pen and 
asked me if I knew who Cornelius Plockhoy was. For- 
tunately I had read The Settlement of Germantown 
and replied in the affirmative. He then discoursed on 
Plockhoy 's socialistic views, and at the end of ten min- 
utes resumed his interrupted work with the remark: 
"I do not smoke tobacco, but I do enjoy a little intel- 
lectual smoke." 

A striking example of the Governor's care in the charters, 
transaction of the public business was presented by 
his practice of personally scrutinizing all applications 
for charters for business corporations. On the second 
day of his term, obsendng that the form of charter in 
use gave no information as to the capital subscribed, 
or the names of the stockholders, he called for the orig- 
inal papers on file in the office of the Secretary of the 
Commonwealth. His quick eye soon discovered several 
instances where the authorized capital was but $1000. 
He instantly suspended action, and refused in writing 
to approve the charter of the Donora Light, Heat and 
Power Co., using that as a test case, stating: "It is 
manifest that the cash which has been paid into the 
treasury and the whole amount of the capital stock, if 
all of it had been j)aid, would be entirely inadequate for 
the purposes of the corporation. A charter ought not 
to be granted where it is manifest that the corporation 
would not be able to perform its functions." (27 
Penna. County Court Reports, 463.) Alarm spread 



50 Samuel Whitaker PennypacTcer. 

from tlie Secretary's office to all parts of the State. 
The Governor's refusal, it was declared, would destroy 
the business of the Commonwealth, curtail the rev- 
enues, and drive all applicants into other States, New 
Jersey and Delaware in particular, and breed a plague 
of foreign corporations seeking to do business in Penn- 
sylvania. Protests from corporation lawyers, eminent 
in the profession, flowed in daily. A day was set for 
solemn argument upon an application for a rehearing. 
The leaders of the bar in Dauphin County, sustained by 
colleagues from Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Scranton, 
Reading and Lancaster, appeared in opposition and a 
discussion, as in a court room, followed, lasting for 
nearly three hours. In less than a week, the Governor 
handed down a carefully written opinion (12 Pa. Dist. 
Rep., p. 115). He explained that, unless the practice 
were changed, ''any three irresponsible persons may se- 
cure the grant of most important privileges without the 
necessity of advancing money to assure the carrying out 
of the purpose of the corporation," and the charter if 
granted would constitute a contract, the obligation of 
which the State could not impair. Men of straw could 
easily be used for the purpose. "Traffic in charters 
would be thus encouraged." "Approval" by the Gov- 
ernor meant something more than a mere clerical func- 
tion. It meant that he must be satisfied that a substan- 
tial capital had been subscribed by responsible per- 
sons to insure good faith. With the possible conse- 
quences of his refusal to accept a nominal sum he had 
nothing to do. It was his duty to see that the charter 
was based on actual value. He reaffinned his previous 
ruling and established the position that at least five 
times the amount previously required would be exacted 
in the future. In less than a year he had quintupled 
the revenues of the State from this single source, and 
instead of driving charters elsewhere there was an 
enormous increase in the number of applications, be- 



Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 51 

cause it was recognized that a Pennsylvania charter 
was not to be bought for a song, or made the cover for 
speculative schemes. 

In the matter of pardons he exercised the same cir- Pardons. 
cumspection. Although, under the law, he could not 
extend executive clemency except upon a favorable rec- 
ommendation of the Board of Pardons, he sometimes 
refused to concur in their action. Notably, in the 
famous Cutaire case, which presented the dramatic 
features of that of Eugene Aram — the discovery of 
human bones sixteen years after the mysterious disap- 
pearance of a living person — he wrote an opinion re- 
fusing to liberate the prisoner whose death sentence 
had been commuted years before to life imprison- 
ment: and in the Kate Edwards case, which had been 
heard three times by the Board of Pardons, and which 
led to an Act of Assembly at the instance of Chief Jus- 
tice Mitchell, he witliheld the death warrant, because 
he declared he could not hang a woman years after her 
male confederate had been acquitted, the evidence 
showing that either both were guilty or both were in- 
nocent. In this connection, it may be said that although 
the Governor was personally strongly opposed to cap- 
ital punishment, he never hesitated to sign death war- 
rants when required by law. It cost him, however, 
much mental anguish, which was noticeable for hours. 

In the same cautious way he handled all requisitions Judges. 
for the extradition of criminals, in doubtful cases send- 
ing the papers to the Attorney-General. 

In the selection of judges for vacancies to be filled 
by Gubernatorial appointment he deliberated long. 
Admonished of the danger of haste, through the de- 
clination of the appointee, the selection of George 
Tucker Bispham, before actual tender of the place, 
having obtained publicity through an accident, he pon- 
dered even when a particular appointment was stren- 
uously pressed. I recall that a certain eminent lawyer 



52 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 

was unanimously supported by the citizens and in- 
terests of his county in the upper part of the State. 
The unanimity of the support made the Governor cau- 
tious, and he made some independent inquiries of his 
own. He learned that the candidate was interested 
financially and officially in all the public utilities of his 
neighborhood. ''How can I appoint him?" he asked; 
''he would be disqualified to sit as a judge in perhaps 
the most important litigation of his county." He se- 
lected another man of merit, and three weeks later it 
was bruited about that the local bank, the electric 
light company and the trolley company had all failed 
and carried down in the crash the very man who had 
been so persistently urged. 

In the Yale Revieiv of August, 1907, Mr. Clinton 
Rogers Woodruff, an accomplished student of State af- 
fairs, wrote: "Governor Pennypacker himself set the 
example of careful, conscientious, faithful discharge of 
the executive duties of his office. He was at his desk 
in the executive building every morning at 9 o'clock 
on practically every working day of the year. He re- 
mained throughout the day, accessible to all who had 
business to transact with him, and carefully considered 
every subject presented to him. As an illustration of 
how he conducted the executive work, I may cite an 
instance which I personally obser\^ed. I was in his 
office on one occasion by appointment. The Auditor- 
General preceded me by a few minutes, his business 
relating to the execution of a contract. The Governor 
asked in the first place for the Act of Assembly author- 
izing the work covered by the contract. He examined 
that carefully to make sure that he had the authority 
to execute the contract. Then he examined the contract 
itself to see whether it was in conformity with the law 
and adequately protected the interests of the State. 
Then he asked for a certificate from the State Treas- 
urer to make sure that the money involved was in the 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 53 

Treasury and available. After he had satisfied himself 
on all these points and that the contract was in legal 
form, he attached his signature. He took nothing for 
granted and acted only after he was fully informed as 
to the circumstances." 

As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of in camp, 
the State he was an annual visitor to the camps of the 
National Guard, and became deeply interested in the 
inspection of arms, uniforms and equipment. I am in- 
debted to Adjutant-General Stewart for the following 
anecdotes. At his first camp the Governor inquired 
with some anxiety as to whether it was usual to review 
the troops on horseback, and on being told that it was, 
after a few minutes of hesitation, said; ''General 
Stewart, as I have been so long unaccustomed to the 
saddle, and have many responsibilities upon me I shall 
not mount. It is too great a risk." The reply was, 
*'Then the staff must dismount." "Be it so," said the 
Governor, "if I can walk, they can do so also." The 
inspection then proceeded, the Governor following 
closely with his eyes the examination of arms and 
accoutrements as conducted by Inspector-General 
Sweeney, who, in passing rapidly down the lines, halted 
in front of a private and called his attention to the fact 
that his bayonet was not properly adjusted, but was 
turned the wrong way. The Governor after watching 
the method of correction took the weapon into his own 
hands and adjusted it to the musket several times and 
passed on. The next year a General of the Regular 
Army of the United States conducted the inspection, 
and overlooked a misplaced bayonet. The Governor 
waited until the line had been passed and then said, 
"General, I think that you have passed a man with a 
misplaced bayonet. " " Impossible, ' ' was the reply ; " a 
bayonet cannot be misplaced." The Governor smiled, 
and returning to the man took his weapon from him 
and brought it to the General, and made a demonstra- 



54 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

tioD. A hearty laugh followed at the expense of the 
regular army officer, who said: ''Well, I am a grad- 
uate of West Point, and I never knew before that a 
bayonet could get out of its proper groove." 

At the inauguration of President Roosevelt a por- 
tion of the National Guard of Pennsylvania attended 
under the command of Governor Pennypacker, who 
asked General Stewart to provide him with a horse. 
In view of his previous unwillingness to mount, the 
General expressed surprise and intimated that it was 
probably more dangerous to ride a strange horse 
through crowded streets with excited citizens waving 
flags and hats than on a decorously conducted parade 
ground. The Governor's reply was characteristic: 
' ' General Stewart, in Pennsylvania I was Commander- 
in-Chief and could do as I pleased ; here in Washington 
on an occasion like this I am under orders as a Divi- 
sion Commander. I have looked at the orders and they 
require that all officers shall be mounted. I shall not 
set an example of disobedience, and I shall not with- 
draw from my command. See that I have a horse." 
"\ATiile riding down Pennsylvania Avenue, an old man 
on the sidewalk exclaimed: ''Here comes the Governor 
of Pennsylvania, I wonder if he has his ancestral 
boots!" "There they are," said the Governor, thrust- 
ing out his foot and drawing up his trouser leg, and 
laughing heartily. 
GoTcrEor's To givc you corrcct information as to the multiplic- 

ity of duties exacted of Governor Pennypacker let me 
say that in addition to those which I have described, 
which may be called his major duties, he was also 
President of the State Board of Agriculture, a Trustee 
of the State Library, a Commissioner of Public 
Grounds and Buildings, the President of the Commis- 
sion of Soldiers' Orphan Schools, of the College and 
University Council, of the State Live Stock Sanitary 
Board, of the Board to Pass upon the Necessity for 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 55 

the Construction of Elevated and Underground Pas- 
senger Railways; of the Louisiana Purchase Exposi- 
tion Commission; of the Commission for the Erection 
of a Statue of Governor Curtin at Belief onte; of the 
Commission for the erection of a Soldiers' Monument 
at Middle Spring; of the Commission to purchase a 
silver service for the Battleship Pennsylvania, and a 
Trustee of Allegheny College and of the Soldiers ' and 
Sailors ' Home at Erie. He was also ex officio a visitor 
to the Philadelphia City and County prisons, of the 
penitentiaries of the State, and of the several lunatic 
hospitals, and the soldiers' orphan schools. He signed 
all patents for lands issued in the name and by the 
authority of the State. He had power to remit fines 
and forfeitures, to grant reprieves and commutations 
of sentence. He demanded fugitives from justice from 
the Executive of any other State or territory, and is- 
sued warrants for the arrest of persons resident in 
this State upon the requisition of the Governor of any 
other State or territory. He authenticated under the 
seal of the State records and instruments of writing 
intended for use in other States or territories. These 
constituted his minor duties, but occupied much of his 
time and attention, as none of them, not even excepting 
his visitorial rights over public institutions, were ever 
neglected. 

In his mode of life at Harrisburg the Governor was simplicity 
simple and unaffected. His public receptions, while 
hospitable, were modest and inexpensive. There was 
an entire absence of display. His annual dinners to 
the members of the State judiciary resembled the cor- 
dial gatherings of friends for talk and reasonable re- 
laxation rather than formal affairs. His biennial 
receptions of the Senators and members of the House 
were popularly attended by tradesmen and farmers 
and modest citizens of the neighborhood, as well as by 
Statesmen, Congressmen, and local magnates. He 



if Life. 



56 Samuel Whitaker Pemiypacher. 

drove no carriages at State expense as he and Ms 
family preferred to go about on foot. If he was in 
haste to catch a train he used a depot hack. He paid 
his own railway fares and never accepted a pass, at a 
time when passes were common. He maintained no 
press staff, and though friendly with reporters, with 
whom he was personally popular, he never entertained 
them until the last fortnight of his administration. He 
never directly or indirectly sought to curiy favor or 
moderate criticism. He took pleasure in feeding the 
squirrels on the Capitol grounds, and always had his 
pockets filled with nuts for their use. He superin- 
tended the pruning of the trees and shrubs on the Cap- 
itol Hill and delighted in long tramps up the banks of 
the Susquehanna, or in excursions to Wetzell's swamp 
in search of flowers and insects, or to the river islands 
to pick up Indian arrow heads or stone implements. 
He liked to talk to fishennen in shad season and en- 
joyed simple suppers at road-side inns. The loungers 
about the doorways never knew to whom they were 
listening, unless some one recognized him and called 
him ''Governor." He was in high spirit when visit- 
ing the forestry reservations or the fish hatcheries, 
and told ghost stories in the moonlight to the wonder- 
ing foresters. He publicly thanked by letter the news- 
paper which had aided him by a useful suggestion and 
never was heard to utter an opprobrious epithet even 
when sorely tried. He was considerate and kindly to 
the clerks and messengers in all the Departments, and 
won their hearts by his simplicity and manliness. 
Avoidance of In the Spring of 1906 the clouds of an impending strike 
prociam^ation. gathered in the anthracite region, threatening a repeti- 
tion of the devastation, loss and gloom so frequently 
resulting from violence and rioting. Without waiting 
for armies of strikers to march out of the mines, and 
gather as pickets to intimidate others in the neigh- 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 57 

borhood of the breakers, and without waiting for the 
ripening of the crisis requiring the presence of the State 
Constabulary or the calling out of the National Guard, 
the Governor by a bold and resolute stroke, which was 
entirely original, maintained unbroken peace and good 
order. He issued the following proclamation on 
May 2d, 1906: "Whereas, industrial disturbances 
have recently arisen in various parts of the Common- 
wealth accompanied by manifestations of violence and 
disorder; Now therefore I, Samuel Whitaker Penny- 
packer Governor of Pennsylvania do issue this my proc- 
lamation and call upon all citizens by their conduct, 
example and utterances, whether printed or verbal, to 
assist in the maintenance of the law. Times of commo- 
tion furnish the test of the capacity of the people for 
self government. Every man is entitled to labor and 
get for his labor the highest compensation he can law- 
fully secure. There is no law to compel him to labor 
unless he so chooses and he may cease to labor when- 
ever he considers it to be to his interest so to cease. 
The laboring man out of whose efforts wealth arises 
has the sympathy of all disinterested people in his law- 
ful struggles to secure a larger proportion of the profit 
which results from his labor. What he earns belongs 
to iiim and if he invests his earnings the law protects 
his property, just as the rights of property of all men 
must be protected. He has no right to interfere with 
another man who may want to labor. Violence has no 
place among us and will not be tolerated. Let all men 
in quietness and soberness keep the peace and attend 
to their affairs, with the knowledge that it is the pur- 
pose of the Commonwealth to see that the principles 
herein outlined are enforced." 

No higher encomium could be pronounced upon the 
result accomplished by this quiet but determined atti- 
tude than that contained in the following letter : 



58 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

''Reading Terminal. 
Philadelphia, Penna. 
May 10th, 1906. 
My dear Governor Pennypacker: 

^Vhen I was pressed by the New York interests to 
urge the Governor of Pennsylvania to take a decided 
stand for law and order I told them that I knew the 
Governor of Pennsylvania; that he would perform his 
duty without suggestions from any one ; that no person 
in the Commonwealth better understood what was his 
duty; and that he had the character and the courage to 
perform it. I have received a number of telegrams 
congratulating the Commonwealth on the stand taken 
by you; and I only want to say to you now that 
your action was a most potential factor in bringing 
about a solution of the problem. 
Yours very truly, 

Geo. F. Baer." 

With this solid background of character and achieve- 
ment before us we can view in proper perspective the 
stormy features of his career. His critics and oppo- 
nents were of two classes, those who misjudged him, 
and those who fought him from ''policy." I seriously 
doubt whether he had any real enemies, certainly no 
personally malignant foes. His friends who under- 
stood him were staunch and loyal, and were bound to 
him by "hooks of steel." 
Quayism. The first murmurs of discontent came from those who 

disliked his admiration of Senator Quay. They asserted 
that Quayism had spoiled him. There were some 
people to whom the mere mention of Quay's name 
caused a spasm affecting the vision, just as the shadow 
of King Richard in the bush caused the horse of the 
Saracen to shy. They never were able to discriminate 
between personal opinions and official acts. It is true 
that Mr. Pennypacker personally liked Senator Quay, 



Samuel Whitaker Pemiypacker. 59 

and that he sincerely admired his political leadership 
and its results. But this is a totally different thing 
from approval of Quay's system or an adoption of his 
methods, both of which were absolutely foreign to his 
nature, and wholly unknown to him in practice. His 
wrath had been greatly stirred by an anonymous attack 
on Pennsylvania in the Atlantic Monthly of October, 
1901, as it was evident from the time of its appearance, 
being coincident with an approaching election, and 
from its use of local incidents that it was a covert 
political document intended for use in Pennsylvania by 
an unknown Pennsylvanian who attempted to belittle 
the really great features in Pennsylvania history. 
Judge Pennypacker 's reply was crushing and convinc- 
ing, and would have stirred every heart, if he had not 
added a eulogy of Mr. Quay. He did not use the expres- 
sion that ''Quay was greater than Webster." That 
was a phrase devised by a critic, and its brevity and 
point gave it a meretricious circulation. What he did 
was to draw a parallel between Webster's surrender to 
the Slave power, evoking the designation of "Ichabod" 
given him by Whittier, and Quay's success in electing 
Harrison as President, the defeat of the Force bill, and 
the success of the McKinley Tariff bill. If any one 
will read the address upon Mr. Quay delivered by the 
Governor on the occasion of the memorial services, 
March 22d, 1905, and read it wittingly, he will find 
that the marrow of the eulogy is expressed in this sen- 
tence: "In the capacity for the building up and the 
maintenance of political forces and for their applica- 
tion to the accomplishment of public ends, it may well 
be doubted whether the country ever before produced 
the equal of Mr. Quay." And the candid reader will 
find toward the close of the eulogy this sentence also: 
"He was not without faults. If his conduct sometimes 
fell below the highest ethical standards, where is the 
man who can honestly scan his own life and throw a 



60 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

stone? Though he cared nothing for the mere accu- 
mulation of money, and was little 'afflicted with the 
mania for owning things,' he exulted in the exercise 
of power and like the war horse in Job smelled 'the 
battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the 
shouting.' He regarded men and their aims too much 
as mere counters to be used for his purpose. He cared 
too little for their comments." Here then is the dis- 
tinction. While ho admired and greatly admired the 
man as a statesman and what he had done for Penn- 
sylvania and the Nation at large, he did not deny, while 
he sought to soften, his weaknesses. But we are con- 
sidering not Mr. Pennypacker 's personal views but his 
acts and conduct as Governor, and it is only because 
his critics failed to notice the distinction that I am at 
the pains to state it. The Governor's methods and the 
Governor's acts were not those of "Quayism." He 
never bullied men; he never applied the screws of 
power, he never manipulated caucuses or conventions, 
he never maneuvered for position, he never schemed, he 
never coerced a legislature; he never trafficked in 
places; he never tempted men; he never bought them. 
He simply did not know what such things were. He 
never surrendered his judgment to Mr. Quay : he never 
acted under his dictation. He selected his cabinet largely 
on purely personal grounds. The Attorney General, the 
Deputy Attorney General, the State Librarian, the 
Commander of the State Constabulary, the head of the 
Health Department, and the Private Secretary were 
not Quay men, in fact several had been actively anti- 
Quay. The Superintendent of Public Education was a 
lifelong Democrat; the first appointment to the Su- 
preme Court was of a lifelong Democrat; the second 
appointment to the Supreme Court was of the man who 
had led the Independent revolt in 1882. The first judi- 
cial appointment to a lower court was also of an Inde- 
pendent. The Secretary of the Commonwealth, who 



Samuel Wliitaker Pennypacher. 61 

died in office, the Banking Conmiissioner, the Secretary 
of Agriculture, and the Dairy and Food Commissioner, 
coming from other parts of the State where the Gov- 
ernor had no acquaintances politically, were, it is true, 
agreeable to Mr. Quay, but they all made admirable 
State officers, and proved to be zealous and efficient. In 
the choice of great State officers, the Auditor General, 
the State Treasurer and the Secretary of Internal Af- 
fairs, the Governor had no part, as they held constitu- 
tional offices, and were elected by the people. On fair 
analysis, it is clear that so far as administrative selec- 
tions were concerned the Governor was remarkably 
free from Mr. Quay's influence. 

As to the Insurance Commissionership, which was 
filled by Mr. Israel W. Durham, a Quay lieutenant, the 
Governor did not hesitate to call Mr. Durham's atten- 
tion to his frequent absences from tlie office, which sub- 
sequently proved to be due to an incurable disease, and 
he directed a court contest, which was conducted by the 
Attorney General in person, over the fees of the office, 
which had become inordinately large, and after a judi- 
cial decision that under the statute the fees belonged 
to the Commissioner, the Governor put his heel upon 
the whole matter by making the abolition of the fees 
in this Department a subject matter of the amended 
call of the Special Session of the Legislature in 1906, 
and the evil was stamped out forever. 

In Legislative matters it was equally clear from the 
first three months of the Governor's term, when he 
freely exercised the veto power, that he was a persistent 
foe to jobs. The only visit that Senator Quay ever 
made to Harrisburg during Governor Pennypacker's 
administration was in April, 1903, and he did so on 
the Governor's invitation. Five bills had passed the 
House, one to make it easy to consolidate water, gas 
and electric companies, another to license race-track 
gambling, another to repeal potential grants in the 



62 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

Susquehanna Canal, the Kingston dam, and a filtration 
bill, all of which were favorites with the politicians. 
The Senator was plainly told that if the bills passed the 
Senate they would be vetoed. They were all killed in 
the Senate. A leading newspaper declared: "These 
five sensational reversals of schemes to which the Gang 
was committed followed directly upon a visit to Harris- 
burg by Senator Quay. He conferred with Governor 
Pennypacker for the greater part of the day, and de- 
parted with an abstracted air upon him, declaring in 
positive terms that he was not interested in any pend- 
ing legislation save the libel bill. It may be that he 
was not. It may be that he made a special plea with 
the Governor to veto the grab bills when they reached 
him. Those who are sufficiently imaginative to accept 
these pleasant fancies may do so." A zealous and ob- 
servant friend of the Governor, in calling his attention 
to this utterance, wrote: ''I enclose you an editorial, 
which I consider the highest compliment I have ever 
seen paid to man. It is so evidently wrested, by the 
mere force of virtue, from an unwilling critic, that it 
speaks volumes." The next year there was no session 
of the Legislature, and during that year Mr. Quay died. 
Refusal of The ncxt storm that assailed him was stirred up 

Court primarily by the conflicting ambitions of others, and 

Justiceship, sccoudarily by those who misjudged him and who ought 
to have known him better. Through the death of Chief 
Justice McCollum and the consequent promotion of Mr. 
Justice Mitchell a vacancy occurred in the Supreme 
Court, which was filled by the appointment by Gov- 
ernor Pennypacker of Samuel Gustine Thompson on 
November 25th, 1903. Mr. Thompson was a Democrat, 
but was considered best qualified to sit because of his 
having been previously a member of the Supreme 
Court under an appointment by Governor Pattison to 
fill a vacancy in an unexpired term. As the vacancy had 
to be permanently filled at the general election to take 



Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 63 

place in November, 1904, the great parties began to con- 
sider candidates. Some of the Republican leaders who 
had suffered under the use of the veto axe and the sena- 
torial defeat of their favorite measures, as just ex- 
plained, conceived the idea of getting rid of the Gov- 
ernor by putting him into the Supreme Court, and with- 
out his knowledge or consent tentatively suggested his 
name for the place. A newspaper discussion followed, 
and opposition developed on the ground that the public 
service could not afford to lose him as Governor. It was 
the highest kind of a tribute to his value as Governor, 
particularly as it occurred after the tremendous uproar 
in the press occasioned by the libel bill, and I have 
taken it up out of the order of date solely because of 
its minor importance. All discussion proceeded with- 
out a word from the Governor until the argument took 
the turn of a denial of right on the part of the Gov- 
ernor to surrender his place for a seat in the highest 
tribunal in the State. As he considered this an inva- 
sion of his personal and official right to determine his 
own actions he asserted his right in a public letter 
which was widely printed in the press, explaining 
that John Jay had resigned the Chief Justiceship of 
the United States to become Governor of New York, 
and other Governors had been chosen during their terms 
of office as such to United States Senatorships, or had 
accepted foreign missions and all without a denial of 
their right to do so, without stating what he would do 
if the nomination were tendered him. In private he re- 
iterated these views, and denied the right to force his 
hand, for he felt the delicacy of declining a nomination 
which had not yet been offered. Instantly it was as- 
sumed that he intended to accept, and those who ought 
to have known and trusted him became his critics. Lead- 
ing members of his own bar, strange to say, addressed 
him in protest and urged him to make known his deter- 
mination. This gave him much pain, but he preserved a 



64 Samuel Wliitaker Pennypacker. 

dig-nified silence in public, and only in private letters re- 
asserted Ills rights without divulging what he would do. 
Finally in April, 1904, he was called upon by a Com- 
mittee, consisting of the Hon. David H. Lane, Senator 
Sheppard, Senator John M. Scott and Hon. Henry F. 
"Walton, then Speaker of the House, appointed to notify 
him that the Pliiladelphia delegation had unanimously 
endorsed him for the nomination for Supreme Court 
Justice. He quietly drew from the drawer of his desk 
a paper which he read in the following terms : "In view 
of the possibility of some such action as you have taken 
I have given careful consideration to the subject in a 
conscientious effort to reach a correct conclusion. I 
have examined the matter in all of its relations so far 
as I have been able to understand them, and I have con- 
cluded not to be a candidate and not to permit my name 
to be presented to the Convention. In so doing I want 
further to say to you that this expression of unstinted 
confidence coming from the people of the City which you 
represent and wherein my judicial work was done will 
ever be one of the grateful memories of my life. ' ' The 
paper was signed "Sam'l W. Pennypacker," and was 
handed on request to Speaker Walton, who has pre- 
served it. It was printed throughout the State, and in 
less than four days letters poured in, two of them, I am 
happy to say, from gentlemen who had distrusted him. 
One read as follows : "My dear sir: If you meant, from 
the outset, to decline this nomination, I offer my sin- 
cere apolog}" for ever having doubted you. But if you 
have yielded your own judgment and have made the 
splendid personal sacrifice of giving up for the sake of 
a professional ideal, an office to which you believe your- 
self fully entitled, there is no measure to the honor and 
gratitude which are due you." Another read: "I 
never lost faith even when those who wished you would 
accept the nomination, and those who wished you would 
not, alike concluded that you would. Personally, I 



Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 65 

could not see how you could go wrong in such a mat- 
ter." A third read: "I desire to present to you an 
expression of my extreme gratification and approval 
of your course in declining the nomination of the 
Supreme Judgeship ; as far as I am able to discover in 
my daily intercourse, my opinions on this matter are 
shared by all intelligent non-partisan men of both 
parties. To my knowledge your presence and influence 
last session put a complete stopper on the corruption 
which has become such an unfortunate and prominent 
feature of our legislative sessions in later years ; it was 
the presence of a thoroughly honest and capable man 
'on the Hill' that brought these desirable results, and 
we cannot afford to lose such a man, even to get a good 
judge." A fourth read: "Permit me, without any 
intention of fulsomeness, to thank you, in the name of 
the common mass of unknown voters and citizens to 
which I belong, for the magnificent rejection of place 
and power, made by you yesterday." And a fifth 
read: *'It would be difficult to express fully my es- 
timate of the character of your act in refusing the nom- 
ination to the Supreme Court. In quality it is the same 
as that of Washington in resigning his Commission. 
I can recall no other instances of such complete and 
faithful devotion to a high sense of public duty in which 
self interest bore no part. This act alone will make 
your name illustrious in our annals. The people have 
never had and never will have a truer representative ; 
calumny, detraction and abuse have had their day ; and 
from this day forth the people will know you as you 
are, a man with the simple straightforward traits of 
Lincoln, with equal courage and endurance, and a fear- 
less faith." 

We now enter the real storm belt. The first, the The Press 
most violent and the most prolonged of the veritable 
tempests to which the Governor was exposed grew out 
of his approval of the Act of 12th May, 1903, popularly 



66 Samuel Whitaker Penny paclcer. 

known as "The Press Muzzier." In my analysis of 
the Programme mapped out by the Inaugural Address 
I reserved this subject for special consideration, and it 
is now in order to consider it. The Inaugural contains 
these words : ''The doctrine of the liberty of the press, 
conceived at a time when it was necessary to disclose 
the movements of arbitrary power, has become in 
recent days too often a cover for base and ignoble pur- 
poses, and, like the sanctuaries of old, a place of re- 
treat where any wrongdoer may secure immunity from 
punishment. Sensational journals have arisen all over 
the land, the owners in concealment and the writers 
and purveyors undesignated, and they have thriven by 
propagating crime and disseminating falsehood and 
scandal, by promulgating dissension and anarchy, by 
attacks upon individuals and by assaults upon govern- 
ment and the agencies of the people." He declared 
that ''they are a terror to the household, a detriment 
to the public service and an impediment to the courts of 
justice. It would be helpful and profitable to reputable 
journalism if they could be suppressed. ' ' He predicted 
that ' ' the time is now at hand, and may have already 
come, when society will find means to prevent this de- 
velopment of vicious life, which constitutes the most 
conspicuous instance of existing ills." He declared; 
"I know of no reason why Pennsylvania, which has 
been foremost in so many directions in the past, should 
not take the lead in a needed effort to improve manners 
and morals by such a reform." He declared that 
"Our Constitution imposes responsibility for the abuse 
of the liberty of the press," and he made two sugges- 
tions for the consideration of the Legislature; first, 
"whether or not it would be well to extend to such cases 
the law of negligence as developed by the decisions of 
our courts, so that there should be liability in damages 
for the physical and mental suffering caused by pub- 
lication made 'without reasonable care';" second, "an 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 67 

inquiry as to the propriety of requiring the names and 
residences of the owners of newspapers to be published 
with each issue;" and added, ''It may be that on con- 
sideration the Legislature in its wisdom will be able to 
devise other means which, while protecting journals of 
good repute, will tend to eliminate the unworthy." 

These passages introduce us to the casus belli. Let 
me at the outset correct three widely prevalent but 
mistaken notions: first, that the Governor's attitude 
toward the press was inspired by personal sensitive- 
ness over the use of cartoons ; second, that the bill was 
in its most stringent features the work of his hands; 
third, that the bill contained provisions destructive of 
the liberty of the press. As to the first: The Gov- 
ernor was not a man of small and mean resentments, 
and would never have regarded a personal grievance as 
a basis for State-wide legislation, but, apart from this, 
it is sufficient to state that it was after and not be- 
fore the approval of the bill that the malice, venom 
and ferocity of the cartoonists were set loose. Prior 
to that time the cartoons had been good-natured pieces 
of humor, such as those relating to the Governor's 
paternal boots, or the way in which he wore his 
beard, or, at the worst, his friendly relations to 
Senator Quay. In proof of this, all that need be done 
is to look at the newspapers of the campaign period 
preceding his election, and compare them with the ter- 
rific exaggeration of the art of the cartoonist and the 
satirist after the bill had been approved. As to the 
second, the Governor's draft of a bill contained only 
provisions for compensatory damages resulting from 
negligent publications, and the publication of the 
names of the owners and managing editors of the 
papers. It contained no reference to punitive damages 
resulting from the use of "pictures, cartoons, head- 
lines, displayed type, or any other matter calculated to 
specially attract attention." Those features and the 



68 Samuel WJiitaker Pennypaclcer. 

punitive damage clause were injected by amendment, 
without consultation with the Governor, by counsel for 
men who had smarted under the lash. As to the third, 
a simple analysis of the bill, section by section, will 
suffice. 

The Governor's main thoughts were contained in the 
two specific suggestions he had made as quoted above 
from the Inaugural Address. I recall distinctly a con- 
versation I had with him in June, 1902, more than four 
months before his election, when strolling about his 
farm on the banks of the Perkiomen. He was speaking 
of his experiences as a judge. ''I have tried many 
cases, perhaps a thousand, of injuries to citizens result- 
ing from the negligence of others ; of men and women 
hurt upon railroads, or knocked down in the street by 
careless drivers of vehicles, or from people throwing 
things from windows, and I have had to consider 
whether a little care could have prevented injury ; and 
I have often thought as I have read of injuries to 
reputation or to business caused by some careless news- 
paper publication whether the law of negligence rather 
than of malice ought not to apply." He mentioned 
three kinds of cases which had impressed him, where 
a charge had been made and published of official dis- 
honesty against the treasurer of a trust company, 
which proving false was promptly retracted; where a 
charge had been made against a worthy citizen of hav- 
ing committed a drunken assault in a public place on a 
well-known man, the citizen being at the time abroad; 
and a charge of infidelity against a married man, whose 
complete innocence was established by an alibi. ''Now 
why," he asked, "is not this negligence? It is not 
malice, the editor had no malice against people he did 
not personally know and who were all in private life. 
The slightest inquiry before, instead of after, the pub- 
lication would have revealed the truth, and might have 
prevented the shame, the disgrace and the suffering 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 69 

so needlessly caused, and also the libel suits which 
followed." He then dwelt upon the unfairness to the 
injured party through lack of knowledge of the name 
of the author of the libel, and mentioned a fact which 
I did not know — that England had required by Act of 
Parliament the publication on the editorial page of the 
names of the owners and managing editors of all news- 
papers. He also mentioned a case of a mistrial in our 
United States District Court occasioned by a news- 
paper publication, which caused the judge to set a 
verdict aside. As I listened to the reading of the In- 
augural I recalled these circumstances and they threw 
light upon his motives, although his thought as ex- 
pressed went beyond them. 

The Bill, amended as has been stated without his 
interposition, reached the Governor duly certified by 
the presiding officers and clerks of both the Senate and 
the House. As the opposition of the press was strong, 
a public hearing of all parties interested was fixed for 
April 21st, 1903, in the Hall of the House of Repre- 
sentatives. It was a most impressive gathering — three 
hundred editors, the representatives of more than 
twelve hundred newspapers, dailies, semi-weeklies, bi- 
weeklies and monthlies, were present in protest — and 
the large room was crowded to its utmost capacity 
with members of the Legislature and interested citizens 
as sjDCctators. The Governor presided, and, alive to 
the psychology of such an unusual occasion, was heard 
to remark : ' ' This meeting is morally most significant. 
The press is asking to be heard before a decision ig 
reached. Perhaps it may occur to some of these 
worthy gentlemen that that is just what private citizens 
would claim as their right before being stricken down 
in reputation and business." The case was argued, in 
support of the bill, by Richard C. Dale and Alexander 
Simpson, Jr., both at the height of their eminence at 
the bar, and in opposition by the Hon. Charles Emory 



70 Samuel WhitaJcer Pennypacker. 

Smith, editor of the Philadelphia Press, Hon. Thomas 
V. Cooper, a member of the House, but appearing as 
the editor of the Delaware County American, and by 
Cyrus G. Derr, Esq., a leader of the Eeading bar and 
the present president of the Pennsylvania State Bar 
Association. In a discussion between these accom- 
plished disputants, lasting nearly four hours, every 
phase of the question was presented. The public, how- 
ever, was not so well informed. The text of the bill 
was never printed in the newspapers, so that there was 
never an opportunity given to citizens to judge for 
themselves of the character of the proposed legisla- 
tion. The arguments against the bill were printed in 
full ; the arguments in its favor were stated in a form 
so abridged as to give little idea of their pertinency, 
particularly as the text of what was being discussed 
was suppressed. The bill itself was denounced editori- 
ally and a campaign worked up against it, in which 
some incautious and emotional members of the rev- 
erend clergy participated without ever ha\^ng read 
a line of the measure. Thus was it made easy — 
whether intentionally or not matters little — for the 
public to misjudge the character of the law, and fur- 
ther, for the public to misjudge the Governor in ap- 
proving it. In his carefully considered approval the 
Governor writes: ''Few persons have read or have 
had the opportunity of reading the provisions of this 
bill. In order that the opportunity may be given, I 
quote the language in full as follows. ' ' The exact text 
was then stated as a part of the message of approval. 
Instead of printing tliis as a part of the document, 
every newspaper omitted the words of the bill, and 
opened their concentrated assaults by stating, "The 
Governor, after quoting the text of the bill, said," &c., 
&c. There was no way in which the citizen of that day 
could accurately inform himself as to the controversy, 
unless he happened to find legislative copies scattered 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 71 

over the desks of members, a chance not within the 
reach of one man in every hundred thousand, and the 
only way in which the citizen of to-day can inform 
himself is to take up the Pamphlet Laws of the session 
of 1903, and turn to pp. 349-359, and as this State docu- 
ment is practically unknown to nine men out of ten, 
the knowledge essential to a fair judgment does not 
exist within easy popular reach. Hence an analysis of 
the bill is plainly in order. Stripped of statutory ver- 
biage, the first section provided that civil actions 
might be brought against the proprietor, owner, pub- 
lisher or editor of any newspaper of the State 'Ho re- 
cover damages resulting from negligence," on the part 
of such persons, ''in the ascertainment of facts and in 
making publications affecting the character, reputation 
or business of citizens." 

There is nothing in this section which prohibited pub- 
lication, any more than the liability to suit against a 
railroad for negligence in carrying a passenger would 
forbid the running of the railroad. 

The second section provided that in such actions, "if 
it shall be shown that the publication complained of 
resulted from negligence on the part of such owner, 
proprietor, manager or editor, in the ascertainment of 
the fact or in the publication thereof, compensatory 
damages may be recovered for injuries to business and 
reputation resulting from such publication, as well as 
damages for the physical and mental suffering endured 
by the injured party or parties." 

This too contained no prohibition of publication, but 
legally put upon the plaintiff the burden of proving neg- 
ligence on the part of the editor, who was left at entire 
liberty to show that he had made inquiry or that the cir- 
cumstances were such as to preclude inquiry; in short, 
to show as a defence that he had not been negligent. 

The section then continued: "and whenever in any 
such action it shall be shown that the matter com- 



72 Samuel WhitaJcer Penny packer. 

plained of is libelous, and that such libelous matter has 
been given special prominence by use of pictures, car- 
toons, headlines, displayed type, or any other matter 
calculated to specially attract attention, the jury shall 
have the right to award punitive damages against the 
defendant or defendants." These are the words added 
to the Governor's draft, and for which he was not re- 
sponsible. The split infinitive would alone acquit him, 
but the fact is as stated. This was the usual feature of 
the law of negligence, that where it was so gross as to 
be matter of aggravation, or where the injury was ac- 
companied by circumstances of brutality, the jury 
might add punishment to compensation. 

The third section provided for the publication on the 
editorial page of the names of the owner or editor of 
the paper, and provision was made for ownership by 
corporations or partnerships, a feature borrowed from 
English law, where it had been approved by experience. 

The fourth section provided for notice of changes in 
ownership of the papers, so as to enforce the preceding 
section. 

The fifth section declared it to be a misdemeanor, 
punishable by a fine of not less than five hundred dol- 
lars nor more than one thousand dollars, for a neglect 
to carry out the provisions of sections three and four. 
This was the usual sanctioning feature of a law. 

These three last sections have become a permanent 
part of the law of the State, acquiesced in by the entire 
press, and stand to the credit of the Governor in fur- 
nishing protection to the citizen against anonymous or 
irresponsible libellers. 

The sixth section repealed all acts or parts of acts 
inconsistent with the foregoing provisions. 

There the statute ended.* It will be seen that the 

* In order that the reader may judge for himself of the statute in its 
entirety, and of the reasons of the Governor in approval, I print the full 
text of the law and of the Governor's message of approval in Appen- 
dix A. 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 73 

fiercest of the fighting was directed against sections 
one and two. The Governor in approving the bill 
declared: ''There is nothing in the terms of the bill 
which prevents any newspaper from making such com- 
ments upon legislative measures or upon the official 
acts of the State, Municipal, County or public officers 
as are proper for the information of the public or are 
in the line of legitimate publication." That is a fair 
comment, and the closest scrutiny of the bill will fail to 
discover any muzzling of the press in dealing with 
public servants. The Governor continued: "There are 
no inhibitions in the bill. It subjects all preliminary in- 
quiries as to facts and their subsequent publication to 
the test of care. The doctrines of the law of negligence 
are well known and apparently easy of application. 
Haste and recklessness in the ascertainment of facts 
prior to publication, or in the manner of publication, 
amounting in the judgment of a Court to negligence or 
the want of that degree of care which a man of ordinary 
prudence would exercise under the circumstances, will, 
if proved, give a ground of action for such damages as 
result from injuries to business and reputation. There 
is no interference with jDrivileged communications."* 
Let me digress a moment as to what was meant by the 
Governor in referring to ''haste and recklessness in the 



* That the reader may understand what is meant by this, I subjoin 
a definition from a well-known legal authority, Odgers on Slander and 
Libel, page 184. "'Privileged communications' are of two kinds: (1) 
Absolutely privileged, which are restricted to cases in which it is so 
much to the public interest that the defendant should speak out his 
mind fully and freely that all actions in respect to the words used are 
absolutely forbidden, even though it be alleged that they M^ere used 
falsely, knowingly, and with express malice. This complete immunity 
obtains only where the public service or the due administration of 
justice requires it. . . . (2) Qualified privilege. In less important 
matters, where the public interest does not require such absolute im- 
munity, the plaintiS" will recover in spite of the privilege, if he can 
prove that the words were not used bona fde, but that the defendant 
used the privileged occasion artfully and knowingly to defame the 
plaintiff." 



74 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

ascertainment of facts prior to publication, or in the 
manner of puhlication." The following anecdote will 
convey very clearly the spirit and motive of the Gov- 
ernor's approval of the Act: 

It was told to me by one of our most useful and 
accomplished public men whose early training as a 
newspaper man had made him an expert in the art of 
drafting headlines which constitute so large a part of 
reportorial skill. ''There was a fishing party," said 
he, ''of which I was one at Harvey Cedars, and the 
luck being against us and the weather warm we re- 
turned unexpectedly early to the piazza of the little inn 
where we were to dine. There were five of us, one the 
president of a bank, another the vice-president of a 
trust company, a third the superintendent of a school, 
the fourth the head of a manufacturing establishment, 
and myself. We called for refreshments, which were 
served on the piazza — a lemonade, a ginger ale and 
some whiskies and soda. The conversation turned on 
various matters and finally the superintendent said : ' I 
wonder why Governor Pennypacker signed that press- 
muzzling bill.' 'Yes,' exclaimed the president: 'so do 
I. It seems such a foolish thing for a sensible man to 
do.' 'I will tell you,' I replied. 'Suppose tomorrow 
morning there appears on the front page of one of our 
great dailies the pictures of all of us somewhat dis- 
torted, but plainly recognizable, with our names 
tagged to our clothing, with the headlines in large let- 
ters: 'Strange Doings at Harvey Cedars — A Fishing 
Party becomes a Drinking Bout — Mr. A., Mr. B., Mr. 
C, Mr. D. and Mr. E., Seen Drinking in the Open Air — 
Mysterious Females Hovering About.' 'My Heavens, 
what a lie!' said the manufacturer. 'Is itf I asked. 
'Didn't we come down here to fish? Aren't we drink- 
ing in the open air? Didn't you see the cook and the 
waitress moving about to get us our dinner?' 'Yes, 
but it is all innocent, and the way you put it, the public 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 75 

would think we were all carousing in a wrong place.' 
*Yes,' I said, 'it is the way it is put, and it is just that 
against which the Governor's bill is meant to protect 
you.' It was an eye-opener for them," said my infor- 
mant, and he laughingly added, "Do you know that I 
had great trouble in quieting the superintendent, who 
feared that I might have been overheard by some re- 
porter, and that he would get into trouble with his 
scholars and his wife about the 'Mysterious Fe- 
males.' " ^ 

To resume our examination of the message of ap- 
proval. The Governor continued : ' ' The bill in its ap- 
plication is not confined to officials, but affects as well 
the citizen or business man, whose conduct constitutes 
no part of the right of the public to information. The 
corporation officer who has been falsely charged with 
crime ; the manufacturer who has been falsely accused 
of being a drunken brawler ; the woman whose domestic 
griefs have been imfeelingly paraded, or whose chasity 
is improperly suspected; the student who has been 
falsely accused of murder ; the clergyman who has been 
cruelly maligned ; the quiet citizen whose peace of mind 
has been destroyed by the publication of evil gossip; 
the merchant whose credit has been affected by ground- 
less rumors ; the suif erers from reckless but not neces- 
sarily malicious publications are given the right, not to 
prohibit publication, but to recover the damages which 
they have sustained, provided they prove negligence or 
lack of care on the part of the publishing newspaper. 
All of these are instances of what has in fact recently 
occurred." 

The foregoing extracts explaining that there was no 
immunity extended to public servants from legitmate 
criticism of their acts, and lifting the curtain upon pri- 
vate scenes of writhing victims of the cruelty of negli- 
gence, were dropped out of sight, and attention was 
concentrated upon a single sentence, in which the Gov- 



76 Samuel Whitaher Pennypacker. 

ernor, after describing a cartoon as ''asserting to the 
world that the press is above the law and greater in 
strength than the Government, ' ' had written, ' ' In Eng- 
land a century ago the offender would have been drawn 
and quartered and his head stuck upon a pole without 
the gates. ' ' It was made to appear as if the Governor 
favored this form for present day punislmient of those 
who cartooned him. The reference to bygone times 
was purely historical, and might have been omitted 
IP^ith advantage, as open to such misconstruction, but 
the warlike critics of the Governor failed to notice a 
more aggravated instance of a misleading appeal to 
history on their own part when Nelan represented the 
Governor as chuckling over these words: " 'I thank 
God there are no free schools nor printing in Virginia, 
and I hope we shall not have them these one hundred 
years ; for learning has brought heresy and disobedi- 
ence and sects into the world, and printing hath di- 
vulged them, and libels against the best Government.' 
— Governor Berkeley of Virginia to King Charles II of 
England in 1665." This cartoon was accompanied by 
the headlines : ' ' Two Governors with a single Thought. 
Pennypacker sees as did Sir William Berkeley the 
Evils of Printing. ' God keep us from it, ' so wrote an 
old Colonial tyrant, troubled by disrespect of author- 
ity." Another cartoon represented the Governor in a 
proudly boastful attitude at the base of a pedestal upon 
which a bust appeared, on the side of which were in- 
scribed the words : " ' I will punish this insolent printer 
who dares to criticize a Governor.' — Gov. Cosby of 
New York who prosecuted John Zenger, 1735." 

No one will find in the bill, nor in the character and 
career of Governor Pennypacker, any justification for 
such misrepresentation of his sentiments or his acts. 
The conscientious student of the period will not fail to 
}:>onder the closing words of the Governor's approval. 
"Since the laws of God and nature are immutable and 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 77 

inexorable, unless some means are found to uproot 
some of the tendencies of modern journalism confidence 
already badly shaken will be utterly lost, and the influ- 
ence of the press, which has been so potent an agent in 
the development of civilization and in securing civil 
liberty, will be gone forever. With a serious sense 
that the event is of more than ordinary moment, with 
full knowledge of the importance of the press and of 
its value to mankind through all past struggles, and 
with the hope that the greater care and larger measure 
of responsibility brought about by this law, tending to 
elevate the meritorious and repress the unworthy, will 
promote its reform while benefiting the community, I 
approve the bill." All these words were omitted from 
the public prints, and the last four words quoted with- 
out their splendid and elevated setting. 

It is no wonder that the people failed to understand 
the bill, and failed to understand the Governor. The 
whole Commonwealth became involved. More than 
twelve hundred newspapers of all kinds opened their 
artillery fire, and the cannonading spread until all the 
big guns of the Nation were in action. The cartoonists 
of the Baltimore Herald, of the Washington Post, of 
the Washington Star, of the Atlanta Constitution, of 
the Denver Post, of the Omaha Herald, of the St. Louis 
Post Despatch, of the St. Louis Republic, to name but 
a few of the many, depicted the Governor as muzzling 
a bull dog, as crunched by a tiger, as impaling an edi- 
tor, as Mrs. Partington, as Don Quixote, or as wor- 
shiping a strange god called Spleen, and a political 
tough was seen reading a poster which read: '^ Penn- 
sylvania new Libel Law Stops Free Utterance, Gags 
a Free Press, Stops Criticism, Throttles Justice, Sup- 
presses Exposure of Corruption." 

The future student, far removed from the passions 
and prejudices of that day, when he reads with calm- 
ness the text of the so-called press-muzzier, and the 



78 Samuel Whitaker Pemiypacker. 

Governor's message of approval, will marvel that there 
should have been such an uproar based on such a pal- 
pable misapprehension, and he will not fail to admire 
the quiet personal and moral courage of the man who 
faced the fire of so gigantic an engine as the press of 
America without flinching and without loss of char- 
acter. Had the Governor been a politician, he would 
doubtless have retired in safety at the first mutterings 
of the storm; or had he been less seriously convinced of 
the necessity for some additional statutory regulation 
of the press, he would have been content to rely, as 
some of his legal friends advised, upon the law of libel 
as resting on the principles of the common law expan- 
sively expounded as they had been by a century or two 
of great judges. But the Governor was not a politician, 
and he had his own views and stood by them without 
quaking. No one can say that they were peculiar to him- 
self. Many other men of widely different tempera- 
ments have had them. Andrew D. White, one of the 
most accomplished of our scholars and diplomatists, 
has lamented in his autobiography the recklessness of 
the American press in dealing with the characters of 
our public men; Theodore Eoosevelt, who cannot be 
taunted with being a tool of tyranny or a foe to free- 
dom, has declared that newspapers ''habitually and 
continually, and as a matter of business, practice every 
form of mendacity known to man, from the suppression 
of the truth and the suggestion of the false to the lie 
direct." John A. Sleicher, editor of Leslie's Weekly, 
pleads for ' ' a daily newspaper that shall print less and 
better news; that shall exercise such censorship over 
its columns that no one's character shall be assailed, no 
institution's standing be discredited, no vested right be 
jeopardized, and no man or woman's motives impugned 
until the editor has justified his statements." Presi- 
dent Hadley urges ''that the newspaper reader must 
get into the habit of seeing whether the statements of 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 79 

fact in the paper are sui3ported by evidence or not." 
And James Edward Rogers in his book upon ''The 
American Press," just issued from the University of 
Chicago Press, states: "The conclusion to which my 
own study of the subject has led me is that the nature 
of the American press is essentially sensational and 
commercial with only a secondary place given to the 
cultural aspects of human thought, and that as a result 
its influence on the morals of the community tends in 
the direction of stimulating love of sensation and in- 
terest in purely material things." 

There is no danger that Governor Pennypacker will 
be classed by posterity with Governor Berkeley or Gov- 
ernor Cosby, but he will be regarded as a propugnator 
for the purification and uplifting of the press. 

The next storm that burst was local in its extent, but The Ripper 
while it lasted it raged with violence. It grew out of 
the passage of four bills amending the Act of 1st of 
June, 1885, providing for the better government of 
cities of the first class, commonly known to Philadel- 
phians as the Bullitt Bill. In the opposition press they 
were designated as "Ripper Bills." The name had an 
odious sound and an odious meaning, and the epithet 
was calculated to mislead. In truth, as approved by 
the Governor, they were not ripper bills at all. They 
ripped no one out of office, and they were not to go 
into effect until after the existing terms of the public 
officers to be affected had expired, in fact not until 
after the Governor himself was out of office. Their 
history was as follows: During Mayor Weaver's term, 
in the midst of the hottest kind of a conflict between 
the Mayor and Councils, he removed the Directors of 
Public Works and of Public Safety and appointed men 
of his own choice against the interests and views of the 
local party leaders. The municipal disturbance took 
place over the lease of the Gas Works to the United 
Gas Improvement Company. In the regular session of 



80 Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 

the Legislature of 1905 four bills were introduced pro- 
viding for the election by Councils of the Directors of 
Public Works, Public Safety, of Supplies, and of Public 
Health and Charities, and looking to their immediate 
effect. There was a strong effort made by politicians 
of all degrees to induce the Governor to sign them in 
this shape. It signally failed, as he was opposed to the 
last named feature. They were then amended so as 
not to become operative until April 1907. The Gov- 
ernor approved two of the bills and vetoed two. His 
critics charged that he acted inconsiderately, that he 
acted unwisely and inconsistently, and that he surren- 
dered to political influences. These charges have no 
real basis. As to the first: Instead of acting incon- 
siderately he acted with deliberation. He received a 
representative delegation of protesting citizens, whose 
distinguished counsel was not only heard in argument 
but who filed a printed brief which was attentively read 
and considered. He received and heard also a counter 
delegation of citizens headed by another lawyer who, 
though a rough diamond, was an able and respected 
constitutional student. He wrote letters to trust- 
worthy friends whose opinions were requested, and re- 
ceived replies by no means unanimous. He discussed 
the matter with men of the type of Senator Knox as 
to the various forms of municipal government best 
suited to varying conditions in the State. He thought- 
fully pondered the decision of the Supreme Court in 
Commonwealth vs. Moir, 199 Pa. 534 (1901), which was 
marked by the ablest constitutional opinion ever writ- 
ten by Chief Justice Mitchell, and by the most powerful 
dissent of Mr. Justice Dean, so that both sides of the 
question were fully presented. So much for the charge 
of lack of consideration. As to the second charge that 
he acted unwisely — in the judgment of his critics — and 
that he acted inconsistently. He was firmly convinced 
— and under the law as expounded from the days of 



Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 81 

Chief Justice Black, and George Sharswood to those of 
Mitchell there can be no doubt of the soundness of his 
A'iews — that a municipal government was not an inde- 
pendent sovereignty but a mere legislative agency, en- 
tirely within the power of the Legislature to create, 
abolish or amend. Next, he was convinced that under 
the Bullitt bill the Mayor had too much power, an 
opinion, by the way, now entertained by many of those 
who once thought otherwise, and who are now agitating 
for a change in the Bullitt bill. Next, he was convinced 
that a change was desirable, and lastly that a consider- 
able body of citizens, many of them of distinction and 
the highest respectability, desired a change. The per- 
sonnel of the debaters did not enter into it. Had * ' the 
people," whatever that vague and shifting term may 
mean, exchanged sides with the politicians, his views 
would have remained the same. As to inconsistency, it 
has been said that it would have been better to have 
vetoed all the bills, as the result of the election of 1907 
showed that the people did not want their charter 
touched. This is hindsight, a common form of 
wisdom. His conclusion was to submit the question in 
some shape to the people for self determination, and 
although the form of the bills made this somewhat 
awkward, by approving two bills and vetoing two, he 
created a referendum in accordance with the much dis- 
cussed theory of the day. In this way he straddled, as 
some harshly said. In tmtli, he defined the issue so far 
as practicable. He gave the politicians far less than 
what they wanted, and he gave the people more than 
half of what they wanted. He displeased both sides. 
I do not say that it was Solomon's judgment, but it 
was much like Solomon's act, who by threatening to 
kill the child elicited the true mother's cry. He actu- 
ally elicited the sentiments of the community. As 
philosophic Wordsworth has said. 



82 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

"He is oft the wisest man 
Who seems not wise at all." 

Lastly, it was said that, in approving two of the bills, 
he surrendered to political influences. This charge is 
equally without foundation. By insisting that all the 
bills should have a prospective and not an immediate 
effect he cut out the ripper features from all of them. 
The two bills that he vetoed were those in which the 
politicians had the most vital interest. Had you heard, 
as I did, the explosions of wrath from the men who 
wanted a clean sweep, you would be chary of charging 
a political surrender. "But why not veto all the 
bills?" some persistent critic cries. The answer has 
been given in part, but there is a larger view to be con- 
sidered. At the time of the discussion, it was by no 
means clear what the public wanted. There were too 
many voices, strident all of them and clashing in their 
clang. The politicians were not all on the one side and 
"the people" all on the other. The politicians' view 
was supported by many eminent and respectable cit- 
izens. Earnest remonstrants, however sincere, are too 
apt to overlook the representative features of our gov- 
ernment. Behind the politicians stood the legally 
chosen representatives of the people, their constitution- 
ally authorized agents, to express their views on sub- 
jects of government, their duly accredited attorneys in 
fact. To deny this is to impeach representative gov- 
ernment. Until our system is changed government is 
not to be conducted b}^ masses of men on one side, or by 
respectable minorities on the other. No Governor is at 
liberty to disregard the most characteristic and valu- 
able feature of our system. If he were to ignore legis- 
lative acts on matters entirely within the powers of 
that body, it would lead to an administrative dead-lock, 
or else to a purely arbitrary personal autocracy. It 
is easy for those without actual practical experience in 
the administration of affairs, and who hug favorite 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 83 

theories, to say that a governor ought to do this, or that 
he ought not to do that, but they would do well to remem- 
ber the words of Sir Thomas More in his Utopia, that 
''there is never a time when critics are lacking ready 
to teach Hannibal the art of war." The man who 
really understands the difficulties of the task will re- 
frain from shouting at the man at the wheel when 
plowing through heavy counter seas, or to change 
the simile, even the strongest of men when caught in 
the midst of swaying crowds, rushing from opposite 
corners, must himself choose his direction, and is not 
aided materially by advice from a citizen looking out 
of the top story window. 

We are now prepared to understand the Governor's 
thoughtfully expressed reasons for his action.* He be- 
gan by comparing a real ' ' ripper" bill with those before 
him. He explained that the Act of March 7th, 1901, which 
applied to Pittsburgh and was not passed during his 
term, ''abolished the office of mayor, and provided a 
chief executive to be called the city recorder, and to be 
temporarily appointed by the Governor. It removed 
from office the mayor who had been elected by the peo- 
ple. It provided for a concentration of authority in the 
hands of the city recorder, who was given the power 
to appoint the heads of five of the principal depart- 
ments, as well as members of the sinking fund commis- 
sion. This act became known even in the decisions of 
the Courts as 'a ripper.' When the constitutionality 
of the act was assailed, the Supreme Court decided that 
the power of the Legislature was unquestionable, and 
its exercise depended upon legislative discretion." 
Having thus given the basis for a comparison, he con- 
tinued: "The present bills raise no constitutional 
query and they are in every respect the exact antithesis 
of this Act. They are so drawn as not to take effect 
until the first Monday of April, 1907, and, therefore, do 

* For the full text see Appendix B. 



84 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

not affect any present incumbents. They remove no 
official from office. They interfere with no one elected 
by the people. Instead of concentrating power, their 
effect would be to disseminate it." He then discussed 
the various forms of government and gave interesting 
historical examples of the evil of permitting too great 
a concentration of power in one individual. He traced 
the drifts of opinion, and stated that while in the 
National Government the tendency was toward a con- 
centration of power, the current was running the other 
way in the States. Then coming to municipal affairs, 
he said: "The most thoughtful observers and those 
most familiar with the practical difficulties of the sub- 
ject would probably concede that it would be better for 
the administration of public affairs in Philadelphia if 
the power, which is given by existing laws to the Mayor, 
could be, in certain directions, at least lessened." His 
views thus stated are in entire accordance with the 
freshest expressions of opinion, particularly those ap- 
pearing recently over the signature of "Penn," whose 
sane, sound and always well-balanced views conunand 
the highest respect. After dwelling on several per- 
suasive confirmations of this thought, and having de- 
clared that they indicated dissatisfaction with existing 
conditions, he then proceeded to answer those who 
urged him to reverse the determination of the Senate 
and House, in which all the members of both bodies 
from Philadelphia had participated, and with admi- 
rable self-restraint declared: *'We must not lose sight 
of the principle that the Governor's veto was expected 
only to extend to those measures which might not re- 
ceive a two-thirds vote of the Senate and House." 
This, under the circumstances of the bills having 
reached his table after the close of the session, gave to 
the Governor an absolute power of veto which was 
never intended. "For me to exercise this power arbi- 
trarily with respect to the question raised by these 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 85 

bills, would be to assume an unusual and illogical posi- 
tion For the change of the method of gov- 
ernment in this municipality much more than two- 
thirds of each House have voted. If the absolute con- 
trol of affairs in Philadelphia by an individual were to 
be preserved, over the almost unanimous vote of the 
Assembly and of the representatives of Philadelphia 
to the contrary, by the autocratic exercise of the inci- 
dental power of the Governor, it might well be a cause 
both for uneasiness and complaint." Having reached 
a decision as to the main line of thought, he stated this 
qualification, that as sudden changes and radical 
changes were always accompanied with disadvantages, 
and while the power of the Mayor might be wisely 
lessened, it would also be wise not to take it away alto- 
gether. The way in which the bills had come to him 
made it difficult to discriminate exactly in the applica- 
tion of this cautionary view, but the conclusion reached 
was the most practicable. * ' Should further changes in 
the method of appointing directors prove by experience 
to be necessary and advantageous, they can be made at 
some future session." 

It is submitted that the future students of our affairs 
will find as little to condemn in the Governor's disposi- 
tion of the matters just reviewed as in the libel bill. 
Certainly no one will impugn his motives. 

The next storm that broke differed in its character Tuecapitoi 
and in its direction from those which have been de- ^*^' 
scribed. In the controversies which raged over the 
libel bill and the ripper bills the attacks were concen- 
trated upon the Governor himself; in the Capitol 
scandal the attacks were made upon the Auditor Gen- 
eral and a former State Treasurer, who were charged 
with having- conspired with the Superintendent of 
Public Grounds and Buildings, the architect and the con- 
tractor to defraud the State. No one ever whispered 
or ever intimated that the Governor was a party to the 



86 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

fraud. It was known of all men that such a thing was 
an impossibility. Joel Hawes, an American writer of 
the early part of the last century, in one of his "Lec- 
tures to Young Men," forcibly said: ''A good char- 
acter is in all cases the fruit of personal exertion. It 
is not inherited from parents ; it is not created by ex- 
ternal advantages; it is no necessary appendage of 
birth, wealth or talents or station; but it is the result 
of one's own endeavors — the fruit and reward of good 
principles manifested in a course of virtuous and honor- 
able action. " It was Governor Pennypacker's character 
which made him armor-proof against suspicion and 
calumny. The worst that was said was that his vig- 
ilance was relaxed and that he had been stupidly blind. 
It is proper to examine these criticisms. Both of them 
are inconsiderate. No one has ever charged that the 
Governor did something which he ought not to have 
done, hence the criticisms are negative rather than 
positive. They do not inform us of what, in the judg- 
ment of the critics, the Governor might have done, nor 
do they tell us what the critics themselves would have 
done had they been in his place, nor do they even in- 
timate what it was that the Governor did not see. They 
simply assume that there was something which he 
ought to have seen and could have seen had he been 
vigilant. Before there can be sanity of criticism there 
must be sanity of statement based on knowledge. Let 
there be no confusion of thought in the matter. The 
Governor was not the Auditor General, he was not the 
State Treasurer, he was not the Superintendent of 
Public Grounds and Buildings, he was not the con- 
tractor, he was not the architect. He was charged with 
none of their duties and possessed none of their 
powers. He was one of three members of the Board of 
Public Grounds and Buildings, and in passing the bills 
for the furnishing and equipment of the Capitol, he 
relied, and had a right to rely, on the vigilance and 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 87 

honesty of his subordinates. For every dollar of ex- 
penditure, he had furnished to him with the bills the 
oath of the contractor, then a business man of unim- 
peached reputation, to their accuracy; the certificates 
of the architect, also under oath, to the fact that they 
were correct and in accordance with the contract; the 
certificates of the Superintendent of Public Grounds 
and Buildings that the goods had been delivered and 
were in possession of the State, and all were accom- 
panied by the joinder of the Auditor General and State 
Treasurer in what were technically called 'treasury 
settlements," and it was not until he had all of these 
papers involving the separate official action of four 
State officers that he approved the bills. He could not 
have found the cunningly concealed overcharges, be- 
cause they were buried in a mass of thousands of items 
contained in the Quantities Book in the office of the 
Auditor General, which had been prepared and kept by 
that officer for his own guidance. It required the ser- 
vices of the New York Audit Company at a later day 
to ferret these items out and it involved nine months 
of time, so craftily had the contractor supplied goods 
under one schedule, which should have been supplied 
under another. Had the Governor put aside all his 
other duties and turned himself into an expert book- 
keeper he could not have found the juggled items, even 
had he suspected them, because their detection as to 
overcharges depended upon tracing way-bills, pack- 
ages, and the identification of articles by both measure- 
ment and scales. But at the time of approval of the 
bills there was no ground for suspicion; no one had 
made a charge, no one had sounded a note of warning, 
and none of the disappointed bidders, nor any of the 
citizens who were subsequently called to testify upon 
the trial, after the din had been kept up for nearly a 
year, were on hand with evidence. The real point is 
that the Governor was not required to look; it was 



88 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 

no more a part of his official duty to turn up such 
items than it would be the duty of the president of 
a trust company to examine each week the ledger 
accounts of his depositors to see whether they were 
properly credited or had overdrawn their accounts, 
or whether a clerk had made false entries to cover 
his embezzlements; or of the president of the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad Company to spend his time in 
the auditing department, or in the supply depart- 
ment, or in looking after switch tenders or the men in 
the signal towers; or of the president of a steamship 
company to inspect the boilers and engines of an ocean 
liner so as to secure the safety of the passengers ; or of 
a general in command of a million or two of men to 
discover shortages in food or munition supplies. In 
our complicated modern life men in the highest posi- 
tions are obliged to rely on their subordinates, and on 
the good faith and honesty of their colaborers. It is 
out of reason as well as outside the bounds of prac- 
tical administration to do otherwise. Omnia prcesum- 
nntur esse rite acta is a maxim based upon the broadest 
experience. In a great Commonwealth, where the Gov- 
ernor was loaded down with multifarious and exacting 
duties, some of which I have described, there is no room 
for any just or candid man to assert that he ought to 
have seen that which was concealed from notice, or to 
suspect that which was not suspected, or to smell rotten- 
ness which was so deeply buried as to be deodorized 
until exhumed by professional spades. He was not 
employed as a detective, he was elected to be Governor. 
When the charge was made in the midst of a political 
campaign, and but three months before the expiration 
of the Governor's term, that there had been crookedness 
in the Capitol accounts, he met it with promptitude and 
directness. He instantly called in the Auditor General, 
prepared and published a statement showing every cent 
which had been expended either by the Commissioners 
of Public Grounds and Buildings or by the Capitol 



Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 89 

Commission in each and every way in connection with 
the building and equipment of the Capitol. This put 
the people in possession of the actual figures of ex- 
penditure. At the same time the Attorney Greneral 
conducted an investigation to enable him to ascertain 
whether there was ground for instituting either crim- 
inal or civil proceedings against the contractors, the 
architect and the State officers. All of the papers on 
file were examined, a laborious and voluminous task, 
and all were found to be regular on their face. No 
facts, no testimony, no evidence which would be com- 
petent in a court of law were produced by the man who 
had made the charge. It was clear that deep probing 
would be necessary, and exhaustive and searching in- 
terrogatories were addressed to every one who had had 
the slightest connection with the contracts, and their 
written answers were obtained. Before the work could 
be completed the official terms of both the Governor 
and the Attorney General expired. A report was filed 
and printed covering three hundred and seventy pages 
of what had been done up to that time, dealing with 
' ' the evidence thus far submitted — and speaking of that 
only," a limitation which was persistently ignored by 
the public press, which failed to notice that the report 
was necessarily limited to the early stages of the in- 
quiry and was not intended to be final and complete. 
After insisting on ''the need for a very searching 
examination, ' ' and calling attention to the necessity of 
establishing fraud by the testimony of competent ''ex- 
perts in the line of the work criticised, ' ' the suggestion 
was made that "the contracts and the vouchers should 
be placed in the hands of an audit company, or experts 
well known," a suggestion which was acted on by the 
employment of the New York Audit Company, and the 
subsequent proceedings were based upon the very lines 
of inquiry instituted by the Governor and the Attorney 
General. No future study of the matter can be com- 
plete without careful examination of this preliminary 



90 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

work. The spirit of the Governor shines forth electri- 
cally in his exclamation on the witness stand before 
the legislative investigating committee : ''If we did not 
get good work, we were all deceived, and if the State 
has been defrauded it is an especially wicked thing. It 
would be, in my judgment, not only a fraud but a 
species of treason." 

I have examined at length all the grounds of actual 
criticism of a great and good man. I state it deliber- 
ately and without qualification, there is nothing which 
furnishes a pretext for a charge of maladministration 
or of negligent administration. There never was a 
more painstaking or conscientious public servant than 
Samuel W. Pennypacker. He devoted his whole time 
and his full strength to the performance of his duties. 
He cherished no ambitions to be served by intrigue, he 
laid no traps, he planned no schemes, he stirred no 
factional quarrels, he meditated no vengeance. I do 
not claim for him infallibility of judgment. No one can 
claim that in this world of uncertain factors. I do not 
claim that his estimates of men were unerring, for he 
was too tender-hearted and unsuspicious to detect evil 
readily. I do not claim for him that uncanny distrust 
which avoids the snares which the unscrupulous spread, 
but which would convert a generous mind into an 
odious skeptic of the good in human nature, but I can 
and do claim that in conscientiousness he was unsur- 
passed. '*A still and quiet conscience is a peace above 
all earthly dignities," or, as Old South puts it, in one 
of his sermons, ''A palsy may as well shake an oak, or 
a fever dry up a fountain, as either of them shake, dry 
up, or impair the strength of conscience. For it lies 
within; it centers in the heart; it grows into the very 
substance of the soul, so that it accompanies a man to 
his grave; he never outlives it, because he cannot out- 
live himself. ' ' 
Public During the term of Governor Tener a Public Service 

Commission. Commissiou was established under the Act of 26th of 



Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 91 

July, 1913 (P. L. 1374), consisting of seven members 
charged with the supervision, investigation and regula- 
tion of all railroads, canals, street railways, stage lines, 
express companies, baggage transfer companies, pipe 
lines, ferry companies, common carriers, Pullman car 
companies, tunnel companies, turnpikes, bridges, 
wharves, grain elevators, telegraph, telephone, gas, 
electric, water, heat, and refrigerating companies, and 
like public service companies within the State. The 
ample and elaborate powers given constituted the most 
extraordinary grant of power to a quasi judicial body 
that had ever been attempted in the history of the 
State, and called for men of the highest capacity and 
varied experience. Ex-Governor Pennypacker was one 
of those selected, became the president of the Commis- 
sion and was in active service until within two months 
of his death. He died with his armor on. 

I cannot dwell upon Mr. Pennypacker 's tastes, ac- Asa 
complishments and achievements as a book collector ^*'"®<=*o'^- 
and a bibliophile without repeating what I have already 
said about them in an address recently delivered before 
The Philobiblon Club. It is sufficient to say that in 
these respects he was unique, and had he done nothing 
else he would be remembered by scholars as a remark- 
able man. 

I now turn to his services to this Society. The three services to 
administrations preceding that of Governor Penny- ^ciSy.*°^^^*^ 
packer were notable for the large accessions of early 
Pennsylvania imprints, principally from the presses of 
William Bradford and his descendants, Eeynier Jan- 
sen, Benjamin Franklin and his successors, Robert 
Bell, the Dunlaps, Joseph Cruikshank, Christopher 
Saur and his descendants, the Ephrata Community and 
Henry Miller; for the increase in membership on the 
removal of the Society to the ^ ' Picture House, ' ' on the 
Spruce Street front of the grounds of the Pennsylvania 
Hospital, and the purchase of the Patterson mansion. 

Governor Pennypacker 's administration of sixteen 



92 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 

years marks an epoch in the history of the Society. 
It should not be forgotten that we owe very largely 
to him the present enlarged building, through the 
assistance of State appropriations. He was dis- 
tinctively qualified to fill the office of president by 
his experience as a vice-president and councillor, 
and the sympathetic interest he took in the objects of 
its organization ; his profound and intelligent knowledge 
of the history of the Commonwealth, and the pride 
which he took in its elucidation, as shown by his 
numerous addresses and writings. Even during his 
absence of four years at Harrisburg, as Governor of 
the Commonwealth, his interest in its prosperity was 
never abated ; he attended meetings of the Society and 
Council, and conferred with the Librarian on purchases 
of rare Americana and other matters pertaining to the 
Library. It was during this absence that the sale of the 
valuable collection of Americana of Bishop Hurst took 
place in New York. At his conference with the Libra- 
rian in the executive office, as both turned over the 
pages of their catalogues, his opinions were tersely 
expressed: "I would buy that," or '* try to secure this 
work," and fortunately for the Society, many valuable 
additions were secured for its collections, one in par- 
ticular being the personal Day Book of President 
Washington, kept during his occupancy of the Morris 
mansion on Market Street, the "White House" of the 
then Capital of the Nation. The additions to the collec- 
tion of rare Americana were in nowise abated, but the 
increase in the Manuscript Division became unprece- 
dentedly large and valuable. 

It may be stated that the accession of books to the 
Library number 24,340 bound volumes. Letter-books 
351, and Manuscripts, 166,134 ; among the latter, Penn 
and Penn-Physick, including miniatures of Admiral 
Penn and wife, with letters to the Founder; William 
Penn's Journals when in Ireland and Holland, and cor- 
respondence; there are also collections under the fol- 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 93 

lowing names : Isaac Norris ; James Logan ; Pastorius ; 
Franklin ; Hamilton ; Rawle ; Wharton ; Shippen-Burd ; 
Washington; Wayne (Orderly Books, one of the 14th 
British Foot, captured at Stony Point, and papers re- 
lating to the Western Expedition) ; Cadwalader ; 
Robert Morris ; John Nixon ; John Dickinson ; Clymer ; 
Reed-Forde; Gratz; Chaloner-White ; Cox-Parrish; 
MTiarton; Humphreys; Proud; John F. Watson; Ser- 
geant; Hollingsworth-Morris ; Governor George Wolf; 
Carpenter; Ashhurst; Hooper; Mendenhall; Jay 
Cooke; Alexander H. Stephens; and United States 
Bank and Northampton and Chester County docu- 
ments. 

The accessions to the Gilpin Library were 222 vol- 
umes of rare Americana; 28 Letter-books; 117 Manu- 
scripts; 7 bound volumes of correspondence of Ben- 
jamin West and original drawings; Holmes' Map of 
Pennsylvania, 1681, as it came from the press, and 
General Duportail's original plan of the encampment 
at Valley Forge. 

It may be stated here that there are 3877 bound vol- 
umes of manuscripts now on the shelves of the Manu- 
script Division, and material awaiting repair and bind- 
ing sufficient to add 3000 volumes. 

Governor Pennypacker 's historical writings are 
models of careful research and devoted study; they 
have the power to hold the interest of the general 
reader and his admirable accuracy satisfies the exigen- 
cies of the student. He had an unrivaled acquaintance 
with all that had been published and an astounding 
amount of new and valuable unpublished information 
on the history of the Commonwealth. His translations 
are uniformly well performed, and the spirit of the 
original always faithfully preserved in its English 
translation. Referring to two of his recent works he 
wrote: ''The entire edition of my 'Pennsylvania in 
American History' was sold within two weeks, and 
copies are now being bought at $10.00 each;" and that 



94 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 

'Pennsylvania the Keystone' has already gone through 
four editions, covering 12,000 copies." 
AsaPenn- Finally, he is to be considered as a Pennsylvanian. 

sylvanlan. . . , .^r i • 

A Chinese philosopher once wrote: ''He who sincerely 
loves his country leaves the fragrance of a good name 
to a hundred centuries." His State pride and his 
State patriotism were abnormal, I had almost said 
colossal. It did not spring from the sickly and bitter 
root of provincialism. It was not nourished by pre- 
judice, nor did it thrive upon detraction or jealousy of 
the other parts of the country. It sprang from knowl- 
edge, from insight into the diviner meanings of those 
mysterious decrees of Providence which mixed in our 
latitude the martyred blood wrung from the suffering 
brows of Holland, Sweden, England, Scotland, Ireland. 
Wales, Grermany, Switzerland and France, to be dis- 
tilled by the fierce fires of revolution into the most 
precious elixir of the ages. 

Consider, Pennsylvanians, of what a State ye are the 
citizens ; a State which in its origin was the sanctuary 
to which the i^ersecuted of all creeds and races fled for 
safety; a State inspired by Mercy, Justice, Truth and 
Peace; upon whose soil were fought those battles in 
colonial, revolutionary and fratricidal days, which de- 
termined the course of critical events; and in whose 
holiest shrine were composed and adopted those docu- 
ments which chart the channels of national power; a 
State from whose veins of wealth and from whose roar- 
ing looms the labor of the world is quickened ; a State 
of struggle and achievement ; and of the most generous 
humanities in the service of mankind; a State whose 
history ought to stir the hearts, uplift the pride, and 
command the love of all her loyal sons and daughters. 

It was this State which your late President knew and 
thoroughly understood; whose reputation he was ever 
ready to defend against disloyalty or ignorance, and 
whose interests he faithfully served until the shaft of 
the insatiate archer struck him down. 



Samuel Whitaker Pennppacker. 95 

Appendix A. 

PampJilet Laws of Pa. 



1903-p. 349. ■ No- 265 

'*AN ACT 

"To authorize civil actions for the recovery of 
damages arising from newspaper publications negli- 
gently made; defining the character of such damages; 
and requiring every newspaper published in this Com- 
monwealth to print, in a conspicuous place in each 
issue, the names of the owners, proprietors or pub- 
lishers, and the managing editors of the same; and 
making a violation of this act a misdemeanor, and fix- 
ing a penalty therefor. 

''Section 1. Be it enacted &c., That from and after 
the passage of this act, civil actions may be brought 
against the proprietor, owner, publisher, or managing 
editor of any newspaper published in this Common- 
wealth, whether the same be published monthly, bi- 
weekly, semi-weekly or daily, to recover damages 
resulting from negligence on the part of such owner, 
proprietor or managing editor in the ascertainment of 
facts and in making publications affecting the char- 
acter, reputation or business of citizens, 

"Section 2. In all civil actions which may be here- 
after brought against the proprietor, owner, publisher 
or managing editor of any newspaper published in this 
Commonwealth, whether the same be published 
monthly, bi-weekly, semi-weekly or daily, and whether 
such owner be an individual, partnership, limited part- 
nership, joint-stock company, or corporation, if it shall 
be shown that the publication complained of resulted 
from negligence on the part of such owner, proprietor, 
manager or editor, in the ascertainment of the facts or 
in the publication thereof, compensatory damages may 
be recovered for injuries to business and reputation 



96 8amuel WUitaker Penny packer. 

resulting from such publication, as well as damages 
for the physical and mental suffering endured by the 
injured party or parties; and whenever in any such 
action it shall be shown that the matter complained of 
is libelous, and that such libelous matter has been given 
special prominence by the use of pictures, cartoons, 
headlines, displayed type, or any other matter calcu- 
lated to specially attract attention, the jury shall have 
the right to award punitive damages against the de- 
fendant or defendants. 

'^Section 3. That from and after the passage of this 
act, each and every newspaper published in this Com- 
monwealth, whether the same be published monthly, bi- 
weekly, semi- weekly or daily shall publish in every copy 
of every issue, on the editorial page, in a conspicuous 
position, at the top of reading matter, the name of the 
owner, owners, proprietor or proprietors of such news- 
papers, together with the name of the managing editor 
thereof; and if said newspaper or newspapers shall be 
owned or published by a corporation, then the name of 
the corporation shall be published, together with the 
names of the president, secretary, treasurer, and 
managing editor thereof; and if the said newspaper 
or newspapers shall be owned or published by a part- 
nership or partnership limited, then the names of the 
partners, or officers and managers, of said partnership 
or partnership limited, shall be published in like man- 
ner. 

' * Section 4. In the event of any change being made 
in the proprietor, owner, publisher or managing editor 
of any newspaper, or in the office of president, secre- 
tary or treasurer of any corporation owning and pub- 
lishing said newspaper, or any change in the name of 
the co-partners, the said change or changes shall be 
duly set forth in the next edition, or issue, of said news- 
paper, following said change or changes. 

"Section 5. Any person, firm, limited partnership 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 97 

or corporation, publishing a newspaper in Pennsyl- 
vania, which omits, fails or neglects to carry out the 
provisions of sections three and four of this act, and 
make the publication required by the preceding sec- 
tions, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor ; and upon con- 
viction thereof shall be fined not less than five hundred 
dollars, nor more than one thousand dollars. 

'^ Section 6. All acts or parts of acts inconsistent 
herewith be and the same are hereby repealed. 

'^^pproved— The 12th day of May, A. D. 1903." 

The Goveenor's Message of Approval. 

• ' The questions raised by the Senate Bill No. 690 are 
of very grave importance. They affect large business 
interests, the freedom of speech and the press, the right 
of the citizen to be informed concerning current affairs 
and the conduct of government, as well as his right to 
protect his reputation and home from the injuries that 
result from careless or negligent, as well as malicious 
false report. They are of importance for the further 
reason that, whichever way decided, the fact that they 
are raised indicates a widespread dissatisfaction with 
existing conditions, and their correct decision is likely 
to have an effect within and without the Common- 
wealth. They are deserving, therefore, of the most 
careful consideration, and the conclusion, unaffected 
by any personal feeling and unswayed by any fear of 
personal consequences, ought to be reached upon the 
plane of what will be for the good of the people. 

Few persons have read or have had the opportunity 
of reading tlie provisions of this bill. In order that 
the oi^portunity may be given, I quote the language in 
full as follows : 

''That from and after the passage of this act, civil 
actions may be brought against the proprietor, owner, 
publisher or managing editor of any newspaper pub- 



98 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

lished in this Commonwealtli, whether the same be 
published monthly, bi-weekly, semi-weekly, or daily, to 
recover damages resulting from negligence on the part 
of such owner, proprietor or managing editor in the 
ascertainment of facts and in making publications af- 
fecting the character, reputation or business of citizens. 

"Section 2. In all civil actions which may be here- 
after brought against the proprietor, owner, publisher 
or managing editor of any newspaper published in this 
Commonwealth, whether the same be published 
monthly, bi-weekly, semi-weekly or daily, and whether 
such owner be an individual, partnership, limited part- 
nership, joint stock company or corporation, if it shall 
be shown that the publication complained of resulted 
from negligence on the part of such owner, proprietor, 
manager or editor, in the ascertainment of the facts or 
in the publication thereof, compensatory damages may 
be recovered for injuries to business and reputation 
resulting from such publication, as well as damages for 
the physical and mental suffering endured by the in- 
jured party or parties; and whenever in any such 
action it shall be shown that the matter complained of 
is libelous, and that such libelous matter has been given 
special prominence by the use of pictures, cartoons, 
headlines, displayed type, or any other matter cal- 
culated to specially attract attention, the jury shall 
have the right to award punitive damages against the 
defendant or defendants. 

' ' Section 3. That from and after the passage of this 
act each and every newspaper published in this Com- 
monwealth, whether the same be published monthly, bi- 
weekly, semi-weekly or daily, shall publish in every 
copy of every issue, on the editorial page, in a con- 
spicuous position at the top of reading matter, the name 
of the owner, owners, proprietor or proprietors of such 
newspapers, together with the name of the managing 
editor thereof; and if said newspaper or newspapers 
shall be owned or published by a corporation, then the 
name of the corporation shall be published, together 
with the names of the president, secretary, treasurer 
and managing editor thereof; and if the said news- 
paper or newspapers shall be owned or published by a 
partnership or partnership limited, then the names of 
the partners, or officers and managers, of said partner- 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 99 

ship or partnership limited, shall be published in like 
manner. 

' ' Section 4. In the event of any change being made 
in the proprietor, owner, publisher or managing editor 
of any newspaper, or in the office of president, secre- 
tary or treasurer of any corporation owning and pub- 
lishing said newspaper, or any change in the name of 
the co-partners, the said change or changes shall be 
duly set forth in the next edition, or issue, of said news- 
paper following said change or changes. 

*' Section 5. Any person, firm, limited partnership 
or corporation, publishing a newspaper in Pennsyl- 
vania, which omits, fails or neglects to carry out the 
provisions of sections three and four of this act, and 
make the publication required by the preceding sec- 
tions, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon con- 
viction thereof shall be fined not less than five hundred 
dollars nor more than one thousand dollars. 

''Section 6. All acts or parts of acts inconsistent 
herewith be and the same are hereby repealed. ' * 

There is nothing in the terms of the bill which pre- 
vents any newspaper from making such comments upon 
legislative measures or upon the official acts of State, 
municipal, county or public officers as are proper for 
the information of the public or are in the line of legit- 
imate public discussion. There are no inhibitions in 
the bill. It subjects all preliminary inquiries as to facts 
and their subsequent publication to the test of care. The 
doctrines of the law of negligence are well known and 
apparently easy of application. Haste and reckless- 
ness in the ascertainment of facts prior to publication, 
or in the manner of publication, amounting in the 
judgment of a court to negligence or the want of that 
degree of care which a man of ordinary prudence would 
exercise under the circumstances, will, if proved, give 
a ground of action for such damages as result from 
injuries to business and reputation. There is no inter- 
ference with "privileged communications." 

The bill in its application is not confined to officials, 
but affects as well the citizen or business man, whose 



100 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

conduct constitutes no part of the right of the public 
to information. The corporation officer who has been 
falsely charged with crime; the manufacturer who has 
been falsely accused of being a drunken brawler; the 
woman whose domestic griefs have been unfeelingly 
paraded, or whose chastity is improperly suspected; the 
student who has been falsely accused of murder; the 
clergyman who has been cruelly maligned; the quiet 
citizen whose peace of mind has been destroyed by the 
publication of evil gossip; the merchant whose credit 
has been affected by groundless rumors; the sufferers 
from reckless but not necessarily malicious publi- 
cations, are given the right, not to prohibit publication, 
but to recover the damages which they have sustained, 
provided they prove negligence or lack of care on the 
part of the publishing newspaper. All of these are in- 
stances of what has in fact recently occurred. 

Within a few days, in a leading article on the first 
page of a daily journal, under large headlines, upon a 
iTimor of unknown source as to the name of a suggested 
appointee to the position of Prothonotary of the 
Supreme Court, when no appointment had been made 
and no utterance, official or otherwise, had emanated 
from any member of that court, that high tribunal was 
subjected to a covert assault under the words '^ Machine 
After Control of the Supreme Court. ' ' 

A mayor of our chief city has been called a traitor, 
a senator of the United States has been denounced as 
a yokel with sodden brain, and within the last quarter 
of a century, two Presidents of the United States have 
been murdered, and in each instance the cause was 
easily traceable to inflammatory and careless newspaper 
utterance. A cartoon in a daily journal of May 2d 
defines the question with entire precision. An ugly 
little dwarf, representing the Governor of the Common- 
wealth, stands on a crude stool. The stool is subordi- 
nate to and placed alongside of a huge printing press 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 101 

with wheels as large as those of an ox-team, and all 
are so arranged as to give the idea that when the press 
starts the stool and its occupant will be thrown to the 
ground. Put into words, the cartoon asserts to the 
world that the press is above the law and greater in 
strength than the government. No self-respecting peo- 
ple will permit such an attitude to be long maintained. 
In England a century ago the offender would have been 
drawn and quartered and his head stuck upon a pole 
without the gates. In America to-day this is the kind 
of arrogance which ' ' goeth before a fall. ' ' 

If such abuse of the privileges allowed to the press 
is to go unpunished, if such tales are permitted to be 
poured into the ears of men, and to be profitable, it is 
idle to contend that reputable newspapers can maintain 
their purity. Evil communications corrupt good man- 
ners. One rotten apple will ere long spoil all in the 
barrel. The flaring headlines, the meretricious art, the 
sensational devices and the disregard of truth, in time 
will creep over them all. Men are affected by prox- 
imity and professional sympathy. Wlien recently a 
verdict of $25,000 was rendered against a journal for 
libel, this entirely proper item of news only reached the 
public by the methods of a hundred years ago. It was 
unpublished, and each man whispered the fact to his 
neighbor. It is equally idle to contend that untrue 
statements and vicious assaults produce no effect and 
that the upright are unharmed. A whole generation of 
young men are being trained to a familiarity with crime 
and to disrespect for government. Even the Legis- 
lature recently, by an act which passed both Houses, 
held the threat of imprisonment over justices of the 
peace for what would have been at most only a neglect 
of duty. Bishops, too, hurry into print without investi- 
gation, and with only such information as comes from 
muddy sources, to express their disregard for those 
whom the people have entrusted with authority. Both 



102 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

incidents indicate a tone which is already too prevalent 
and is being steadily cultivated to the public detriment. 
Were a stranger from Mars by some accident to read 
our daily press, he would conclude that the world is 
inhabited by criminals and governed by scoundrels. It is 
sad to reflect that some historian of five hundred years 
hence, misled by what he reads, will probably study 
the statesman whom we know to be able and strong, 
generous and kindly, keeping his promises and paying 
his debts, and depict him with the features of an owl 
and the propensities of a Nero or Caligula. The motive 
which leads to the degradation of the press is very plain 
and by no means unusual. It is the same motive which 
causes men to put deleterious chemicals into food, weak 
iron into the boilers of engines, and wood into the flues 
of houses, — the desire to produce cheaply in order that 
there may be a profitable sale. There is no animosity 
toward the poor creature who may take copperas into 
his stomach or scandal into his mind, but the willing- 
ness to do injury for a reward needs the supervision 
and restraint of the law in eax?h instance alike. Where 
the conscience of the individual is too hardened to pre- 
vent him from going astray, where trade associations 
have become a bond of sympathy rather than a curb for 
wrong conduct, and injuries are inflicted upon others, 
then the law ought to lay its heavy hand upon those 
who offend, whether they be weak or whether they be 
strong. It is not the individual attacked who is alone 
concerned. The Commonwealth is interested that those 
who render her service should be treated with deference 
and respect, so that when they go forth in the perform- 
ance of her functions those to whom they are sent may 
feel that they are vested with authority. Let there be 
no mistake about it. In the long run, society always 
finds a way to protect itself. For continual, persistent 
public violation of the law, the publication so offending 
may be abated by the courts as a public nuisance. 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 103 

When, during the war of the Rebellion, a New York 
journal forged a proclamation with the name of the 
President attached to it, to the great injury of the 
nation then in the midst of a struggle for life, Mr. Lin- 
coln promptly suppressed the publication. The liberty 
of the press to scatter injurious falsehood no more 
bound him than the withes bound Samson. He estab- 
lished a precedent which no doubt will be followed in 
the future should a like occasion demand it. The exist- 
ence and growth of the evil is recognized by all ob- 
sei*ving men, has been pointed out in repeated warnings 
by the Supreme Court, and was frankly acknowledged 
by the representatives of the press at the hearing upon 
the present bill. I listened in vain to hear any remedy 
they might be able to suggest. Many years' experi- 
ence on the Bench has led me to the conclusion that 
crimes are widely propagated not by the malice but by 
the recklessness of the press, and that in certain classes 
of cases, among them murder, the accused were at times 
convicted or acquitted before they reached the court 
room. But for the unfortunate decision that the Legis- 
lature could limit the courts in imposing punishment 
for contempt to acts occurring within the court room, 
as though violation of an order had some relation to 
doors and windows, the courts could have prevented 
this interference with the performance of their func- 
tions and this aggression upon personal liberty. Such 
a condition of things is much to be deplored and it 
ought to be prevented if possible. The bill offers as a 
remedy for these ills, or some of them, the application 
of the principles of the law of negligence to the publi- 
cation of newspapers. All that this means is that they 
shall exercise ''reasonable care" in the ascertainment 
of facts and the announcement of comment which may 
injuriously affect the reputation or business of other 
people. It is a law of almost universal application in 
the affairs of men. When we walk the streets or drive 



104 Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 

a horse, or light a fire or make a shoe or build a house, 
we must take care that we do not cause harm to others. 
It applies to the gatherer of garbage. Why should it 
not apply to the gatherer of news? It applies to the 
lawyer, the doctor and the dentist, in the exercise of his 
profession. Whj should it not apply to the editor? It 
is impossible to give any logical reason which will bear 
examination why they should be exempt. The damages 
provided for by the bill follow the ordinary rule of 
damages for want of reasonable care. When a man is 
bitten by a dog or gored by a bull, or cut or burned, or 
overturned or is run over by a hand cart or street car, 
through negligence, he may recover compensation for 
physical and mental suifering. This measure of 
damage is peculiarly applicable and in fact essential 
in the cases of injuries intended to be guarded against 
by the bill. When a woman is falsely called a strumpet, 
it does not break her arm or rob her of her wardrobe. 
It hurts her feelings, and if she cannot get compen- 
sation for her mental suffering she can get nothing. 
If malicious untruth is emphasized by picture and head- 
line, punitive damages are awarded. Is there any good 
reason to the contrary? If a man gouges out the eyes 
or rubs pepper into the wounds of his adversary, or 
cuts the tongue out of his neighbor's horse, the damages 
are always left to the discretion of a jury. 

An upright and worthy gentleman, trained to the law, 
who has worn a sword in the service of his country, 
and who bears a name honored in Pennsylvania for 
more than two hundred years because of its connection 
with an impressive and heroic event, is sent by the 
people to the Legislature, and in the performance of 
his duty and upon the responsibility of his oath intro- 
duces a proper bill which is not agreeable to the press. 
It is not shown that the bill would be harmful or unwise. 
The policy is not confronted with argument pointing 
out its error or weakness. But some outcast is hired 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 105 

to pervert his name from Pusey into "pussy" and to 
draw contorted cats which are scattered broadcast over 
the land in the hope that the vile and vulgar will snicker 
at his wife and children when they pass. Could the 
most just and kindly of judges, could any friend of the 
press meaning to be fair, say that should he bring suit 
against the newspapers which committed this outrage 
and indecency he ought not to be permitted to recover 
what a jury shall regard as compensation! 

The bill provides, under penalty, that the names of 
the owner, proprietor, publisher and managing editor 
shall be printed with each issue. The purpose of the 
provision is that it may be known who is responsible 
for the publication. Every business man prints upon 
his bills and letterheads and puts in front of his store, 
his name. Every doctor and every lawyer puts his 
name on his office door. The law provides that a record 
shall be made, open to the public, of those who compose 
partnerships and limited partnerships. And yet every 
day pages of material are printed purporting to be a 
record of current affairs of the world, and claiming the 
right to sit in supervision upon the courtesies of the 
parlor and the doings of public officials, and no one 
knows what their origin, whence they come, who is he 
who writes them or who is responsible for them. If the 
vendor of a horse were to insist upon wearing a mask 
so as to escape identification, who would buy of him? 
The Veiled Prophet, though preaching about piety and 
virtue, was so veiled because both hideous in appear- 
ance and libertine in conduct. No harm and much good 
may come from requiring such publicity. These are all 
of the provisions of the bill, and no one of them would 
seem to be uncalled for, unjust or unduly harsh. 

Since the Constitution of this State, in its declaration 
concerning liberty of the press, directs that there shall 
be responsibility "for the abuse of that liberty," and 
since the test is that publications shall not be "mali- 



106 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

ciously or negligently made, ' ' it would appear to be in 
entire accord with that instrument that newspapers 
should be held accountable in damages for negligence. 
Some technical objections are made to the bill. It is 
urged that since weekly newspapers are nowhere men- 
tioned, it offends against that provision of the Consti- 
tution which prevents special legislation. A careful 
examination shows that the enacting clauses are in gen- 
eral words, ''each and every newspaper" and ''any 
newspaper, ' ' and that the enumeration of the different 
kinds of newspapers is mere description and unes- 
sential. The omission of the word "weekly" was un- 
wise but in no sense fatal. If hereafter a news- 
paper should be issued every other day or twice a 
day, and thus not be included in the descriptive words 
used, it would, as well as the journals published weekly, 
be covered by the general enacting words, and be sub- 
ject to the provisions of the bill. All of the provisions 
relate to one general subject and appear to be suffi- 
ciently described in the title. It is further urged that 
the bill ought not to become a law because not read 
upon three several days in the House of Eepresenta- 
tives before its final passage. If it was not so read, 
then undoubtedly there was a failure upon the part of 
the House to perform its duty. Whenever, however, 
the bill is signed by the President of the Senate and 
the Speaker of the House, it is an official certificate that 
it has been passed in accordance with the constitutional 
requirements and the rules governing the action of 
those bodies. But little thought is needed to see that 
the Governor has no responsibility for, and can exer- 
cise no supervision over, the manner of the delibera- 
tions of the Legislature. He has no part or parcel in 
them, he has no place on the floor, and save by report 
and unofficially has no knowledge of what occurs there, 
except as they give it to him. The two houses consti- 
tute a separate branch of the government, and were he 
to interfere it would be an encroachment and lead to 



Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 107 

untold commotions. He can no more dispute their cer- 
tifications than could they inquire into his motives for 
signing a bill or withholding his approval. If they 
should assert that it was properly passed and he should 
assert to the contrary, who is to decide the disputed 
question of fact, he who oflficially knows nothing about 
it, or they who are given the power? If it is proper 
legislation in correct form, how could he justify himself 
in disapproving it on the ground that the motives were 
impure or the manner of passing it informal? In the 
case of Kilgore vs. Magee, 85 Penna. 412, where it was 
alleged that the bill had not been read three times, the 
Supreme Court said that the duty of seeing that this 
mandate was observed was solely that of the members, 
and further : ' ' In regard to the passage of the law and 
the alleged disregard of the forms of legislation re- 
quired by the Constitution, we think the subject is not 
within the pale of judicial inquiry." This furnishes a 
safe rule to follow. The purpose of the reading upon 
three different days is not to allow time for those inter- 
ested to impress their views upon the legislators, but 
to insure that the legislators have the opportunity for 
hearing and voting advisedly. In the present case 
there was more than the usual opportunity given for 
preliminary discussion by the people. Some such legis- 
lation was recommended in the Inaugural address. A 
bill concerning cartoons was introduced early in the 
session and widely published. This bill was read three 
times in the Senate and once in the House. A similar 
bill had been read twice in the House when the present 
bill was substituted, so that if the allegation of irreg- 
ularity be correct, at least we can be assured that the 
action taken was preceded by numerous forewarnings. 
The proposed legislation has been regarded by a 
large proportion of the reputable press with great mis- 
givings. It is natural that this should be the case. The 
future is ever uncertain, and the easy way to avoid the 
dangers ahead is to stand still. This is nevertheless 



108 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 

not a wise course. The boy conscious of many lapses, 
who is invited by a stern father into a private room, 
enters with a vague dread, and yet the purpose may 
only be to arrange for the coming holidays. When the 
gardener comes with his hoe into the garden which has 
been left to run wild, it is safe to say that it is the mul- 
lein and not the pea which is likely to suffer. 

This bill may not be the best possible legislation, but 
the purpose is commendable, and should experience 
show it to be defective, something better may be de- 
vised. It ought to be cordially and cheerfully accepted 
by the reputable press, for they have a special interest 
in its becoming a law. Where the tares occupy the 
ground, the wheat perishes. It threatens them with no 
danger. Seeking to utter the truth and not the false- 
hood, what have they to fear? Into our courts where 
learned judges administer the law with fidelity and 
juries are drawn from the masses of the people well 
fitted to determine who is the wrongdoer, they are not 
likely to be suiomoned, or if summoned they may go 
with entire safety. This much is certain. Since the 
laws of God and nature are immutable and inexorable, 
unless means are found to uproot some of the ten- 
dencies of modern journalism confidence already badly 
shaken will be utterly lost, and the influence of the 
press, which has been so potent an agent in the develop- 
ment of civilization and in securing civil liberty, will 
be gone forever. 

With a serious sense that the event is of more than 
ordinary moment, with full knowledge of the impor- 
tance of the press, and of its value to mankind through 
all past struggles, and with the hope and belief that the 
greater care and larger measure of responsibility 
brought about by this law, tending to elevate the mer- 
itorious and repress the unworthy, will promote its 
welfare while benefiting the community, I approve the 

bill. 

Saml. W. Pennypacker. 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker, 109 

Appendix B 

Pamphlet Laws of Pa. | 

1905— p. 390. J " 

''an act 

"To amend an act, entitled 'An act to provide for the 
better government of cities of the first class in this 
Commonwealth,' approved the first day of June, Anno 
Domini one thousand eight hundred and eighty-five, by 
amending section one of article three of said act, by 
vesting in the Director of the Department of Public 
Safety certain powers, therein given to the Mayor ; and 
amending section one of article twelve of said act by 
providing for the election of the Director of the Depart- 
ment of Public Safety and the Director of the Depart- 
ment of Public Works by the members of the select and 
common councils of cities of the first class, and pro\ad- 
ing for their removal. 

"Section 1. Be it enacted, &c., That so much of sec- 
tion one, article three of the act, entitled 'An act to 
provide for the better government of cities of the first 
class in this Commonwealth,' approved the first day 
of June, Anno Domini one thousand eight hundred and 
eighty-five, which reads as follows: 

"Section 1. No policeman or fireman shall be dis- 
missed without his written consent, except by the de- 
cision of a court either of trial or of inquiry duly de- 
terminated and certified in writing to the mayor, which 
court shall be composed of persons belonging to the 
police or fire force equal or superior in official position 
therein to the accused. Such decision shall only be de- 
termined by trial of charges with plain specifications 
made by, or lodged with, the Director of the department 
of public safety, of which trial the accused shall have 
due notice, and at which he shall have the right to be 
present in person. The persons composing such court 
shall be appointed and sworn by the director of the 



110 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacl^er. 

department of public safety to perfonn tlieir duties 
impartially and without fear or favor, and the person 
of highest rank in such court shall have the same 
authority to issue and enforce process to secure the 
attendance of witnesses, and to administer oaths to 
witnesses, as is possessed by any justice of the peace 
in this Commonwealth,' shall be amended to read as 
follows : 

''Section 1. No policeman or fireman shall be dis- 
missed without his written consent, except by the deci- 
sion of a court either of trial or of inquiry, of which 
decision notice shall he given, in writing, to the Di- 
rector of the Department of Public Safety, which court 
shall be composed of persons belonging to the police or 
fire force equal or superior in official position therein 
to the accused. Such decision shall only be determined 
by trial of charges, with plain specifications made by, 
or lodged with, the Director of the Department of Pub- 
lic Safety, of which trial the accused shall have due 
notice, and at which he shall have the right to be pres- 
ent in person. The persons composing such court shall 
be appointed and sworn by the Director of the Depart- 
ment of Public Safety to perform their duties impar- 
tially and without fear or favor, and the person of 
highest rank in such court shall have the same authority 
to issue and enforce process to secure the attendance 
of witnesses, and to administer oaths to witnesses, as 
is possessed by any justice of the peace in this Com- 
monwealth. 

''Section 2. That so much of section one, article 
three of said act, which reads as follows : 

'Section 1. The finding of the court of trial or in- 
quiry, as aforesaid, shall be of no effect until approved 
by the Mayor," shall be amended to read as follows: 

"Section 1. The finding of the court of trial or in- 
quiry, as aforesaid, shall be of no effect until approved 
by the Director of the Department of Public Safety. 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. Ill 

''Section" 3. That so much of section one, article 
twelve of said act, which reads as follows: 

'Section 1. The mayor shall nominate and, hy and 
tvith the advice and consent of the select council, ap- 
point the following officers, who shall hold office during 
the term for which the appointing Mayor was elected, 
and until their successors shall be respectively ap- 
pointed and qualified: 

I. The Director of the Department of Public Safety. 

II. The Director of the Department of Public 
Works, shall be amended to read as follows : 

"Section 1. The Director of the Department of Pub- 
lic Safety and the Director of the Department of Public 
Works shall be elected by a vote of a majority of all 
the members of select and common councils of said 
cities, in joint session, for a term of three years, and 
until their successors shall be respectively elected and 
qualified, and shall be subject to removal by a vote of 
a majority of all the members of the select and common 
councils in said cities, in joint session. 

"Section 4. This act shall not take effect until the 
first Monday of April, Anno Domini one thousand nine 
hundred and seven. 

All acts or parts of acts inconsistent herewith are 
hereby repealed. 

Approved— The 5th day of May, A. D. 1905. 

Saml. W. Pennypacker. 

The Governor's Message of Approval and Disapproval. 

"I file herewith, in the ofiice of the Secretary of the 
Commonwealth, with my objections. Senate bill No, 
479, entitled, 'An act to amend section five of an act,' 
entitled "A supplement to an act, entitled 'An act to 
provide for the better government of cities of the first 
class in this Commonwealth, amending articles two, 
three, ten and twelve, and providing for a Department 



112 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

of Public Health and Charities, in lieu of the Depart- 
ment of Charities and Correction,' approved the eighth 
day of April, Anno Domini one thousand nine hundred 
and three, so as to provide for the election of the Di- 
rector of the Department of Public Health and Char- 
ities by the members of the select and common councils 
of said cities and providing for his removal." 

Senate bills Nos. 441, 479 and 480, all relating to the 
government of cities of the first class, may well be con- 
sidered together. We are told in Genesis that when 
Jacob wanted to deceive his father into conferring 
upon him the blessing which was intended for Esau, he 
covered his hands and his neck with goatskin. It gen- 
erally happens in all serious inquiries that it is neces- 
sary to look beneath the mere surface indications if we 
are earnestly desirous to reach a correct conclusion. 
The act of March the 7th, 1901, *'for the government of 
cities of the second class," in effect annulled the pre- 
vious charters of those municipalities. It abolished the 
office of mayor, and provided a chief executive to be 
called the city recorder, and to be temporarily ap- 
pointed by the Governor. It removed from office the 
mayor who had been elected by the people. It pro- 
vided for a concentration of authority in the hands of 
the city recorder, who was given the power to appoint 
the heads of five of the principal departments, as well 
as the members of the sinking fund commission. This 
act became known even in the decisions of the courts 
as a "ripper." When the constitutionality of the act 
was assailed, the Supreme Court decided that the power 
of the Legislature was unquestionable, and its exercise 
depended upon legislative discretion. The present bills 
raise no constitutional query and they are in every re- 
spect the exact antitheses of this act. They are so 
drawn as not to take effect until the first Monday of 
April, 1907, and, therefore, do not affect any present 
incumbents. Thov remove no official from office. They 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 113 

interfere with no one elected by the people. Instead of 
concentrating power, their effect would be to dissem- 
inate it. They provide that certain heads of depart- 
ments, instead of being appointed by the mayor under 
existing laws, shall be elected by the members of coun- 
cils, and in this way give the people much greater con- 
trol over these heads of departments. The mayor is 
now elected for a term of four years, and during this 
period is beyond the reach of the people, except through 
the process of impeachment. The members of councils 
are in large part elected each year, and at the end of 
two years all of the members of common council, and 
at the end of three years all of the members of select 
council, may be changed. The provision that the bills 
shall not go into effect until the first Monday of April, 
1907, is in the nature of a referendum, for the reason 
that, if these bills should not be approved by the people, 
disapproval can be expressed in the election of mem- 
bers of the Senate and House, who will have ample 
time before the date named to have the acts repealed. 
The principles they invoke are much larger and broader 
than the affairs of any municipality, and the contest 
that has resulted is the manifestation of a straggle 
which has been waged throughout the existence of all 
governments, past and present, and is not yet deter- 
mined. Whether it is more conducive to the welfare 
of human society, and to the development of good gov- 
ernment and its proper administration, to have power 
concentrated in an individual, and responsibility fixed, 
or to have it vested in representatives of the people, 
whose tenure depends upon their carrying out the pop- 
ular will, is still an open question. The history of most 
nations, states and municipalities, shows that there has 
been a continual shifting from one system to the other, 
as the evils which have resulted from each by long con- 
tinuance have impressed themselves upon the people. 
Whether Charlemagne, building up an empire which 



114 Samuel Whitaker Penni/packer. 

meant the rehabilitation of Europe, or Abraham Lin- 
coln, representing a government of the people and by 
the people, was the more beneficent in his work, may- 
be open to discussion. Whether Nero, setting fire to 
Rome for the amusement of an emperor, or Robes- 
pierre, cutting off the heads of his enemies in the name 
of the populace, was the more harmful, is equally un- 
certain. In France, the efforts of the Bourbons to con- 
centrate power was followed by the Revolution, and 
that again by the empire of Napoleon. In England, the 
arbitrary exercise of authority by the Stuarts was fol- 
lowed by the establishment of the Commonwealth under 
Cromwell, and thereupon succeeded the restoration and 
the limited monarchy of 1688. So far as we can gather 
light from the experience of the past, the concentration 
of power seems to be the more dangerous. There have 
been few instances of such dissemination of power as 
to lead to anarchy, and these, like the revolt of the 
Anabaptists of Munster, and the French Revolution, 
have been of brief duration, but instances in which all 
authority has been grasped by individuals to the public 
disadvantage have been very numerous. Pope sought 
a solution of the problem by writing: 

"For forms of government let fools contest. 
That which is best administered is best." 

In this country the opposite currents of thought have 
been in existence, and have alternated in control ever 
since the adoption of our national constitution. The 
efforts of Washington, Hamilton and Adams to con- 
centrate executive authority led, in a few years, to the 
overthrow and destruction of the Federalist party. 
The Democrats and Jefferson, advocating the other 
view, then came into power and for fifty years, in the 
main, had control of the government. For the last 
forty years the drift has been in the opposite direction; 
but who can say that we have reached a final solution 
of the problem? At the present time the tendency in 



Samuel Whitaker Pomy packer. 115 

the national government is toward a concentration of 
power, and in the different state governments the cur- 
rent is running in the direction of entrusting executive 
authority to the representatives of the people. The 
most thoughtful observers and those most familiar with 
the practical difficulties of the subject would probably 
concede that it would be better for the administration 
of public affairs in Philadelphia if the power, which is 
given by existing laws to the mayor, could be, in certain 
directions at least, lessened. He has, in effect, absolute 
control over the contracts for all the public work, over 
an army of police and attendants, and over all the 
affairs of the municipality. He, in substance, has the 
appointment of officials, of greater or lesser impor- 
tance, estimated to be in number from seven thousand 
to twelve thousand. If this great authority could be 
exercised intelligently, and only as a trust for the good 
of the people, it would undoubtedly be the best system 
of government ; but if, unfortunately, it should fall into 
corrupt or even incapable hands it would prove to be 
the very worst. One of the most important principles 
of all good government is the proper maintenance of 
the distinction between legislative and executive func- 
tions, and one of the gravest dangers to be feared is 
the absorption through encroachment of the functions 
of one department by the other. Such encroachment 
may come from the executive as well as from the legis- 
lative branch of government. The authority of the 
mayor can be exercised in such a way as not only to be 
felt in the legislation of councils, but to dominate them. 
The seat of the councilman, which he holds for a very 
brief period, is dependent upon the good will of the 
mayor, and he can hardly be expected to resist the 
influence when called upon to legislate. The power of 
the mayor, should he fail to exercise conscientious self- 
restraint, may be used also in politics. In this aspect 
of the matter, the bills are of importance to the whole 



116 Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 

Commonwealth, for the reason that Philadelphia, with 
its large delegation in the legislature and in political 
conventions, has a great influence in determining ques- 
tions which affect the State. Since the passage of the 
Bullitt Bill, one mayor of Philadelphia sought to be- 
come the President of the United States. Another was 
selected for the special purpose of overthrowing the 
then existing political control of the Commonwealth, 
and the eif ort very nearly succeeded. Such conditions 
and such possibilities certainly give rise to proper ap- 
prehension. While there is great difference of view 
as to the propriety of the proposed legislation, undoubt- 
edly many of those most capable of judging correctly 
are of the opinion that the present sj^stem has not 
proved to be, upon the whole, advantageous to the 
municipality. The most influential political leader in 
Philadelphia is of the opinion that it has proven to 
be harmful. Since he has had long experience, and the 
opportunity for close observation, his conclusions are, 
at least, entitled to careful consideration. Many of the 
most competent lawyers are in accord with this view. 
It has been announced far and wide over the land, and 
is believed by many good people, that, under the suc- 
ceeding mayors, contracts for public work have been 
awarded to corrupt favorites, that the police have been 
in league with the keepers of dives and bawdy-houses, 
and that these improper relations have been supported 
by those in authority. However much we may disbe- 
lieve these charges, and however much we may dep- 
recate their inconsiderate publication, they neverthe- 
less indicate a dissatisfaction, upon the part of those 
who make them, with existing conditions. Upon this 
important subject, upon which men may well differ in 
their conclusions, the Governor is urged to reverse the 
determination of the Senate and House, in which all 
of the representatives of Philadelphia, in both Senate 
and House, participated. The Constitution gives the 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 117 

Governor a power of veto, but it was never intended to 
be an absolute veto. If he disapproves of a measure 
it may nevertheless become a law by a vote of two- 
thirds of the members of both Senate and House. It 
is true that after adjournment of the Assembly he may 
disapprove of the bills which then remain, but this pro- 
vision was intended only to prevent the manifest in- 
convenience of inaction. It was supposed by those 
who drafted the Constitution that bills would be con- 
sidered by the Assembly during its session, that few 
would be left at its close, and for them it would be 
necessary to make provision. The effect of leaving the 
mass of legislation until the closing days of the session 
gives to the Governor an absolute power of negation 
which was never intended, and, incidentally, it may 
be said that at some time great harm will result to the 
Commonwealth because of this practice. We must not, 
however, lose sight of the principle that the Governor's 
veto was expected only to extend to those measures 
which might not receive a two-thirds vote of the Senate 
and House. For him to exercise his power arbitrarily 
with respect to the question raised by these bills, would 
be indeed to assume an unusual and illogical position. 
This question is not one of ordinary legislation, but it 
goes to the very foundations of government, involving 
all the interests, not only of this municipality, but the 
principles which affect all civilizations. For the change 
of the method of government in this municipality much 
more than two-thirds of each House have voted. If the 
absolute control of affairs in Philadelphia by an in- 
dividual were to be preserved, over the almost unan- 
imous vote of the Assembly and of the representatives 
of Philadelphia to the contrary, by the autocratic exer- 
cise of the incidental power of the Governor, it might 
well be a cause both for uneasiness and for complaint. 

Having now reached a decision as to the line of 
thought which ought to determine the action of the 



118 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

Governor upon the main question, this qualification yet 
remains to be made. Whatever system of government 
may be the better, it is certainly true that a radical and 
sudden change from one plan to another is always ac- 
companied with disturbances and disadvantages. In 
my view it would be wiser to lessen the power of the 
mayor. It would be wiser not to take it away. There 
is a certain propriety in having the Director of Public 
Works, who has charge of the contracts for which coun- 
cils make the appropriations, subject to the control of 
councils. There is also a certain propriety in having 
the Director of Safety, who has charge of the police and 
the maintenance of the peace, appointed by the mayor, 
who is responsible for good order. Had there been 
four separate bills, one for each department, this 
thought could have been enforced, but in the shape they 
have come to me it is impossible to secure such a result. 
Nevertheless a modification of the proposed plan it is 
possible to make, by approving the bill which changes 
the method of selecting the Directors of the Depart- 
ments of Public Works and Public Safety, and dis- 
approving the two bills which change the method of 
selecting the Directors of the Departments of Supplies 
and of Public Health and Charities. The maintenance 
of a proper conservatism in the conduct of important 
affairs is a different proposition from an interference 
with the determination of a fundamental principle of 
government by the Legislature. Should further 
changes in the method of appointing directors prove by 
experience to be necessary or advantageous, they can 
be made at some future session. 

For these reasons I approve Senate bill No. 441, and 
disapprove of Senate bills Nos. 479 and 480, the 5th day 
of May, A. D. 1905." 

Saml. W. Pennypacker. 



Samuel Whitaker Penny packer. 119 

Appendix c 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SAMUEL W. PENNYPACKER 

Annals of Phoenixville and Its Vicinity. 8vo, pp. 295, 

1872. 
Eittenhouse's Orrery. Lossing's American Historical 

Record, 1873. 
A Councillor, Judge and Legislator of the Olden Time. 

Lippincott's Magazine, April 1874. 
Charlestown Township. Potter's American Monthly, 

January 1875. 
Abraham and Dirck op den Graeff. Penn Monthly, 

Sept. 1875. 
Captain Joseph Richardson. Penn Monthly, Feb. 1876. 
The Pennypacker Reunion. 8vo, pp. 51, 1877. 
Colonel Samuel John Atlee. Pennsylvania Magazine, 

1878. 
Mennonite Emigration to Pennsylvania. Pennsyl- 
vania Magazine, 1878. 
A General Index to the English Common Law Reports. 

Supplement. 8vo, pp. 485. Philadelphia, 1879. 
The Settlement of Germantown and the Causes "Which 

Led to It. Pennsylvania Magazine, 1880. 
James Abram Garfield. 8vo, pp. 8, 1881. 
A Noteworthy Book. Pennsylvania Magazine, 1881. 
Zionitischer Weyrauch's Hiigel oder Myrrhen Berg. 

Bulletin of Library Company of Philadelphia, 1882. 
David Rittenhouse. Harper's Monthly, May 1882. 
Recueil de diverses Pieces Concernant la Pennsylvania. 

Pennsylvania Magazine, 1882. 
Reports of Cases Decided in the Supreme Court of 

Pennsylvania. 4 vols., 8vo. Philadelphia, 1882-1885. 
Historical and Biographical Sketches. 8 vo, pp. 416. 

Philadelphia, 1883. 



120 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 

An Address at the Bicentennial Celebration of the 
Settlement of Germantown, Pa., and the Beginning 
of German Emigration to America. 8vo, pp. 12. 
Philadelphia, October 6, 1883. Translated into Ger- 
man and into Dutch by Dr. Scheffer of Amsterdam. 

An Open Letter from Samuel W. Pennypacker to 
George William Curtis. 8vo, pp. 8. Philadelpliia, 
1884. 

Address : ' ' The State of Pennsylvania, Where the Con- 
stitution was Framed," in the Proceedings at a 
Dinner given by the Citizens of Philadelphia to the 
Hon. John A. Kasson, October 13, 1877. 8vo. Phila- 
delphia, 1887. 

Breakfast to the Justices of the Supreme Court of the 
United States in the American Academy of Music, 
September 15, 1887, by the Bar of Philadelphia. 8vo, 
pp. 61. Philadelphia, 1888. 

Banquet given by the Learned Societies of Philadelphia 
at the American Academy of Music, September 17, 
1887, Closing the Ceremonies in Commemoration of 
the Framing and Signing of the Constitution of the 
United States. 8vo, pp. 86. Philadelphia, 1888. 

The Quarrel between Christopher Sower, the German- 
town Printer, and Conrad Beissel, Founder and 
Vorsteher of the Cloister at Ephrata. 8vo, pp. 21. 
Philadelphia, 1888. 

A Political Fable. 8vo, pp. 7. Philadelphia, 1890. 

Brief, in re Eight of the Twenty-sixth Pennsylvania 
Emergency Eegiment to a Monument at Gettysburg. 
(Board of Commissioners of Gettysburg Monu- 
ments.) 8vo, pp. 9. Philadelphia, 1890. 

The University of Pennsylvania in Its Relations to the 
State of Pennsylvania. 8vo, pp. 15. Philadelphia, 
1891. 

The First Mayor of Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Mag- 
azine, XV, 344, 345, 1891. 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 121 

The Early Literature of the Pennsylvania Germans. 
Proceedings of the Pennsylvania German Society. 
Vol. II, 1892. 

The Keystone and Plymouth Rock : An Address at the 
dinner of the New England Society of Pennsylvania, 
December 22, 1891. 8vo, pp. 10. Philadelphia, 1892. 

Twenty-sixth Pennsylvania Emergency Infantry: An 
Address at the Dedication, September 1, 1892, of the 
Monument to Commemorate the Services of the Regi- 
ment on the Battlefield of Gettysburg. 8vo, pp. 26. 
Philadelphia, 1892. 

Pennsylvania Colonial Cases: The Administration of 
Law in Pennsylvania prior to A. D. 1700, as shown 
in the Cases Decided and in the Court of Proceedings. 
8vo, pp. 185. Philadelphia, 1892. 

The Pennypacker Pedigree. Philadelphia. (Fifty 
copies privately printed.) 

The Weekly Notes of Cases. 45 vols., 1875-1894. (Re- 
porter for C. P. Nos. 2 and 3.) 

Hendrick Pannebecker, Surveyor of Lands for the 
Penns, 1674-1754, of Flombom, Germantown, and 
Skippack. 8vo, pp. 164. Philadelphia, 1894. 

Congi-ess Hall : An Address at the Last Session of the 
Court of Conmion Pleas, No. 2, in Congress Hall, 
Philadelphia, September 16, 1895. 8vo, pp. 34. 
Philadelphia, 1895. 

Joseph Rusling A\^itaker, 1824-1895, and His Progen- 
itors. A Memorial. 8vo, pp. 32-42. Philadelphia, 
1896. 

The Pennsylvania Dutchman in Philadelphia. 8vo, pp. 
13. Philadelphia, 1897. 

Pennsylvania and Its University. A Letter to Charles 
C. Harrison. 8vo, pp. 11. Philadelphia, 1897. 

Pennsylvania and Its University. 8vo, pp. 11. Phila- 
delphia, 1897. 

Address on Memorial Day, May 30, 1898, before 
Colonel Frederick Taylor Post, No. 19, G.A.R. 8vo, 
pp 18. Philadelphia, 1898. 



122 Samuel Whitaher Pennypacker. 

Valley Forge: An Address before the Pennsylvania 
Society of Sons of the Revolution, June 18, 1898. 
8vo, pp. 9. Philadelphia, 1898. 

The Descent of Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker, late 
President of the Netherlands Society of Philadelphia, 
Pa., from the Ancient Counts of Holland, with the 
Authorities in Proof. 8vo, pp. 25. Philadelphia, 
1899. 

The Settlement of Germantown, Pennsylvania, and the 
Beginning of German Emigration to North America. 
8vo, pp. 310. Philadelphia, 1899. 

The Pennsylvania Dutchman and Wherein he has Ex- 
celled. 8vo, pp. 6. Philadelphia, 1899. 

The Origin of the University of Pennsylvania in 1740. 
8vo, pp. 23. Philadelphia, 1899. 

Address of the Honorable Samuel W. Pennypacker, 
Pennypacker 's Mills, Pa,, June 17, 1899. 8vo. pp. 8. 

The South African War in Nuce. 8vo, pp. 6. Phila- 
delphia, 1900. 

Netherlands Society of Philadelphia Annual Banquets, 
1892-1901. Addresses each year. 8vo. 

Reports of Cases in the Philadelphia License Court of 
1901. In Curiam Currente Calamo Scribentur. 8vo, 
pp. 30. Philadelphia, 1901. 

Johann Gottfried Seelig and the Hymn Book of the 
Hermits of the Wissahickon. 8vo, pp. 7. Philadel- 
phia, 1901. 

Speeches of the Hon. Matthew Stanley Quay. 8vo, pp. 
200. Philadelphia, 1901. 

Three Letters upon the War in South Africa. 1 — Its 
Cowardice. 2 — Its Brutality. 3 — Its Futility. 
Printed in newspapers over the world and translated 
into the languages of the Continent. 

Valley Forge Orderly Book of General Weedon. 8vo, 
pp. 323. New York, 1902. 

Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. A Historical Par- 
allel. 8vo. Philadelphia, 1902. (Several editions.) 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 123 

Pennypacker's Mills in Story and Song. (Typed.) 
Folio, pp. 205. Philadelphia, 1902. 

The Capture of Stony Point : Oration at the Dedication 
of the New York State Park, July 16, 1902. 8vo, pp. 
10. Philadelphia, 1902. 

Inaugural Address. 8vo, pp. 8. Harrisburg, Pa. 1903. 

Laws Passed at the Session of 1903. 8vo, pp. 661. 
Harrisburg, Pa., 1903. 

Vetoes. 8vo, pp. 162. Harrisburg, Pa., 1903. 

The Freedom of the Press: Governor Samuel W. 
Pennypacker's Message Approving the Bill in Ee- 
straint of its Liberty, and Charles Emory Smith's 
Editorial in Protest. 8vo, pp. 28-1. Philadelphia, 
1903. 

George Washington in Pennsylvania. 8vo, pp. 16. 
Harrisburg, Pa., 1904. 

Address at Gettysburg upon the Introduction of Presi- 
dent Eoosevelt. 8vo, pp. 6. Harrisburg, 1904. 

Address upon Pennsylvania Day, August 30, 1904, at 
the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. 8vo, pp. 14. 
Harrisburg, 1904. 

In re Application of William J. Byers for commutation 
of the sentence of death. 8vo, pp. 6. . 1904. 

Speech in the Thirteenth Republican National Conven- 
tion Nominating the Hon. Charles W. Fairbanks 
for the Vice-Presidency. (See Proceedings 1904, p. 
173.) 

A Fragment of the Chronicles of Nathan Ben Saddi. 
4to, pp. 49. Philadelphia, 1904. 

Message of the Governor to the General Assembly, Jan- 
uary 3, 1905. 8vo, pp. 22. Harrisburg, 1905. 

Laws passed at the Session of 1905. 8vo, pp. 697. 
Harrisburg, 1905. 

Vetoes, pp. 217. Harrisburg, 1905. 

Address at the Memorial Proceedings of the Pennsyl- 
vania Legislature upon the Death of Senator Matthew 
Stanley Quay. 8vo, pp. 13. Harrisburg, 1905. 



124 Samuel Whitaker Pennypacher. 

Speech at the American Academy of Music, October 18, 
1905. 8vo. 

Message of the Governor. Svo, pp. 7. Harrisburg, 
1906. 

Address at the Congress on Uniform Divorce Laws. 
8vo, pp. 6. Harrisburg, 1906. 

Laws passed at the Extraordinary Session of 1906. 
8vo, pp. 128. Harrisburg, 1906. 

Address at Antietam in the Volume, ' ' Pennsylvania at 
Antietam," page 23. Harrisburg, 1906. 

Address at the Dedication of the State Capitol of Penn- 
sylvania, October 4, 1906. (See volume on the State 
Capitol, p. 92.) 

Message of the Governor. 8vo, pp. 18. Harrisburg, 
1907. 

The Library of the Hon. Samuel W. Penn3rpacker. 
Catalogues. 6 vols. 8vo. Philadelphia, 1905-8. 

Bobbers Township and the Dutch Patroons of Pennsyl- 
vania. 8vo, pp. 18. Philadelphia, 1907. 

The High-water Mark of the British Invasion of the 
Northern Colonies during the Revolutionary War. 
Pennsylvania Magazine, October 1907. 

Anthony Wayne : An Address at the Dedication of the 
Equestrian Statue at Valley Forge. 8vo, pp. 48. 1908. 

Introduction to Dr. Martin G. Brumbaugh's Works of 
Christopher Dock. 8vo. Philadelphia, 1908. 

Introduction to Dr. Marion D. Learned 's Life of 
Francis Daniel Pastorius. 8vo. Philadelphia, 1908. 

Samuel John Atlee : A Biographical Sketch. 8vo, pp. 
11. 

In re Application for the Extension of the Charter 
Route of Royersford Street Railway. 8vo, pp. 3. 

Orations on Lincoln, by Hon. Samuel W. Pennypacker 
and Col. Alexander K. McClure, delivered at a meet- 
ing of the Law Association of Philadelphia, held in 
the Rooms of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 
Februaiy 12, 1909, in Commemoration of the Centen- 



Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. 125 

nial of the Birth of Abraham Lincoln. 8vo, pp. 28. 

Philadelphia, 1909. 
Pennsylvania in American History. Svo, pp. 494. 

Philadelphia, 1910. 
The Desecration and Profanation of the Pennsylvania 

Capitol. Svo, pp. 104. Philadelphia, 1911. 
Judicial Experience in Executive Office: An Address 

before the Maryland State Bar Association, June, 

1911. 8vo, pp. 19. 
Pennsylvania, the Keystone: A Short History. Svo, 

pp. 316. Philadelphia, 1914. 
Introduction to Hon. Hampton L. Carson's ''Pedigrees 

in the Ownership of Law Books. ' ' Philadelphia : 

The Philobiblon Club, 1916. 
War and Christmas (180 words). Collier's Weekly, 

December 23, 1916. 



